


haunted by the ghost of you

by missandrogyny



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Ghost Harry, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Car Accidents, Mentions of Death, Real Estate Agent Louis, no one wanted a ghost fic but you are getting one?? sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 49,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22049635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missandrogyny/pseuds/missandrogyny
Summary: He’s tall—that’s the first thing that registers in Louis’ head when he spots him, standing with his hands behind his back. Tall, with curly hair, staring at them with the widest, greenest eyes Louis has ever seen. And wait, are those dimples? Louis didn’t know ghosts could have dimples.Because he’s definitely a ghost, this boy. At first glance he looks normal, standing there pigeon-toed in a band shirt (The Ramones, Louis can’t help but note incredulously), dark jeans, and some boots, with rings on both hands, and tattoos littering his left arm—a sleeve made of anchors and names and roses and other completely unrelated things. But he’s also a little bit translucent; if Louis focuses, he can see the outline of the furniture, the design of the wallpaper through him.“Hi,” the boy—the ghost—says to Louis. His face shifts; somehow his dimples dig deeper into his cheeks. His eyes flit from Louis, to Niall, to Liam, and finally to Zayn, and his face goes from shocked to elated. “I’m Harry.”At in that exact moment, standing between three of his best friends and staring at a (quite handsome) ghost, Louis can only think one thing.Nick Grimshaw was right.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 118
Kudos: 902





	haunted by the ghost of you

**Author's Note:**

> so this is just. extremely inaccurate, in the supernatural aspect, real estate aspect, and medical aspect. so i'm very sorry if you're either a ghost, a real estate agent, or a medical professional.
> 
> this was inspired by [ this](https://thecw4kids.tumblr.com/post/152610530918/ghost-in-the-house-get-out-i-will-take-you-real) tumblr post. i also had no idea what i was doing half the time writing this so i'm very sorry
> 
> big thanks to princess and j who dealt with my whining

It’s after the flat’s been on the market for eight months that it finally ends up with Louis.

“ _Please_ ,” says James, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s stressed—Louis can see the bags under his eyes, can see the way his hair is much more unkempt than usual. “Please, Louis. This flat has been on the market for _far_ too long. We really need this sold.”

Louis blinks at him. “But why me?” He wonders, instinctively reaching out for the files James hands him. “I work _houses_ , not flats. Get Grimshaw to do it, or something.”

James rolls his eyes. “He won’t do it,” he says, and Louis can hear an undercurrent of annoyance in his voice. “Straight up refuses to, even, no matter how much commission I offer him. Won’t tell me why.”

“How about Aidan?” Louis tries. “Bebe? Luke?”

James shakes his head. “They’ve all tried, they’ve all failed.”

Louis frowns. “It can’t be _that_ hard to sell the flat,” he says, opening the file and pulling out the paperwork. From the photos, the flat is perfect; a nice, central location in the heart of London, with breathtaking views and easy access to everything. It’s a little bit quirky, too—the building had been an old clocktower, and the architect had refashioned the clock face into large, bay windows. It’s bright and gorgeous and airy and it comes with some rather expensive furniture and a _gorgeous_ stand up piano, and it’s being sold for _such_ a low price that Louis is finding it hard to believe that nobody has wanted it for the last year. “Especially this flat.”

James chuckles darkly. “You’d be surprised,” he says. “The lawyer’s been getting on my nerves about it, doesn’t understand why it’s been on the market for so long. I don’t either.”

“Lawyer?”

“The owner wanted to keep his identity private, so we’re communicating with his lawyer.” James shrugs. “Maybe he’s an important person or something.”

Huh. Interesting. Louis takes another moment to look through the file, skim through the data. It definitely looks like a place where someone important would live. “What’s wrong with the flat then?”

James shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I genuinely don’t. I’ve gone to the flat myself and didn’t see anything wrong with it. And none of the clients will tell me why they pulled out of the deal the day before contract signing.”

That’s…strange. “Huh. And how many clients have done this?”

“Five,” James replies.” He sighs. “That’s why, I’m begging you, Louis. Please.” James leans forward, puts his hands together. “You’re one of my best agents. I don’t care how you do it, just. Take this flat off our hands. I’ll give you a ten percent commission.”

Louis looks at the flat again, at its floor plans and its data. It doesn’t seem like it’d be hard to sell. And if James is so desperate to be rid of it…“Fifteen percent,” he bargains.

“Eleven.”

“Fourteen.”

“Twelve.”

“Thirteen.”

“Fine,” James says, rolling his eyes. “Thirteen percent, plus a bonus, if you manage to sell the flat by the end of this year.

It’s only mid-July. Louis’ got roughly four months to figure out what’s wrong with this gorgeous flat, fix whatever it is, sell it, and earn himself a _lot_ of extra money. And with how perfect the flat is, it’s doable. _Incredibly_ doable. Child’s play, even.

“Done.”

. . .

Nick walks past Louis’ desk later, while Louis’ poring over the files, studying everything he needs to know about the flat.

“Corden gave you that?” Nick asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at the photos scattered on Louis’ desk. “Damn, he must _really_ want it gone.”

He reaches down to pick up a photo, but Louis slaps his hand before he can. “Fuck off, Grimshaw,” he says, hunching over his files a little protectively. There’s an _order_ to how the files are laid out, see, and Louis doesn’t need Nick and his greasy hands messing it all up. “Don’t fuck up my work.”

Nick laughs. “Fine,” he says, turning to leave. “Good luck with that, then.” The tone of his voice is even, stoic, and it reminds Louis of something James said earlier.

“Wait,” Louis says, and Nick pauses, turns back around. “James mentioned something. Why is it you don’t want to sell the flat?

The play of emotions on Nick’s face is far too quick for Louis to catch. “It’s the perfect flat,” Nick answers, his expression settling on cocky. “It’s a little bit beneath my level to be selling something that easy, no?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You’re terrible,” he says.

“I know, darling.”

Nick makes to leave again, but this time he pauses, turning a bit to look at Louis over his shoulder. “About the flat,” he says. “There’s something you should know.”

“Is it that you jerked off on the couch and left a terrible come stain on the cushion?” Louis jabs.

Nick lets out a laugh. “No, I—no. No.” He takes a deep breath. “The flat is…well, they say it’s. It’s haunted.”

And that.

That is the biggest load of bullshit Louis’ ever heard.

. . .

See, it’s not that Louis doesn’t believe in ghosts—it’s his own personal philosophy that it’s better to believe in the supernatural, better to err on the side of caution and believe the spirits and the dead and the souls lingering around rather than just going about his life believing only the things he can see, hear, smell, touch, taste. Plato’s allegory of the cave, and all that. There is much more to life than what’s in front of you.

And the thing about spirits and ghosts and souls and all the supernatural things is that they’re just something _unknown_. They’re not something anyone has extensively studied, and nobody in the whole fucking world can tell you what the actually happens when you die, or whether vampires and werewolves actually exist. So Louis prefers not to step on any toes, prefers to go about his business respecting the supernatural in the hopes that they’d respect him back.

But a ghost in a flat in Central London? Absolutely fucking absurd.

There’s a reason why horror films are often set in some cabin in the woods. There’s a reason why ghost stories you hear are often set in the forest, or some rural area far away from modern technology. There is a _reason_ why countryside quiet has become synonymous to creepy, why creaky floorboards and the sound of branches against windows can make someone’s heart pump, make someone’s anxiety levels spike.

Because there are no fucking ghosts in urban areas.

. . .

Nick doesn’t stop talking about the flat being haunted, despite Louis telling him to give it up and tell him the _real_ reason. He seems uncharacteristically serious about it too, telling him the same thing over and over— _there’s a spirit that lives in those walls, and he’s trying to get out_.

And despite what everyone thinks, Louis doesn’t actively hate Nick—he’s a decent friend and pretty good company on a night out—but he’s _too_ much, sometimes. There are definitely moments in their friendship where Louis has entertained the thought of murdering him in cold blood. Especially now, when he clearly knows _something_ about the flat and won’t tell Louis what it is.

Eventually, Louis gets sick of seeing Nick, so he does his best to avoid him, and texts Bebe, Aidan and Luke, asking them for the numbers of the clients who were supposed to buy the house. They all send back the numbers, and Louis begins the process of calling them up, asking them about their opinion of the flat, and why they’d backed out of the deal.

The first one is a girl, who tells him that she’d wanted to buy that flat with her long-term boyfriend, but they’d broken up suddenly and she could no longer afford it on her own. The second one is also another girl, who tells him she suddenly got a ‘bad vibe’ from the walls. The third one is a boy, who tells him that he’d been inspecting the flat with a mate when they’d suddenly heard _It’s Britney, Bitch!_ coming from the walls. The fourth is a couple, who tells them that the day they visited, the piano had started playing, one note at a time. And the last one is a boy, who tells him that the day before they were supposed to sign, him and his brother inspected the flat, and both of them had seen the furniture moving in increments from the corner of their eyes.

“See,” Nick says, when Louis hangs up with the last person. He seems to have somehow found Louis. “Haunted.”

Louis is _so_ tired of him. “If you say that word again, I’m going to strangle you,” he threatens, and starts doing research on whether or not the other tenants of the building partake in creation and consumption of hallucinogens.

. . .

Every single tenant he talks to about hallucinogens look at him like he’s insane. Louis decides not to pursue that line of questioning anymore.

. . .

“So,” Liam says, as Louis unlocks the door quietly. “If you don’t believe in this flat being haunted, why the fuck are we here?”

Louis glares at him. “To prove a point,” he says, managing to get the front door open. He walks into the spacious living room, keeping an eye out for singing walls or moving furniture. There aren’t any, so Louis gets to work—he pushes the glass coffee table off the middle of the room, unfurls the purple blanket he’d brought on the ground. “To prove _my_ point.”

“And you’re doing that by…conducting a séance.”

Louis resists the urge to sigh. “Yes Liam,” he says. “We’re going to see if there are any ghosts in the flat by conducting a séance.”

Liam just looks even more confused. “But I thought séances were supposed to call the ghost,” he says. “If there are no ghosts right now and then we _call_ a ghost…then the flat’s going to be haunted, isn’t it?”

Trust Liam to make everything a lot more complicated. “Look,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. He takes a seat on the blanket, crossing his legs. “I have no idea how this entire thing works. All I really want to do is prove that there’s no ghost in this fucking flat, look Grimshaw in the eye when I tell him there’s no ghost, and watch him eat his quiff.”

Liam opens his mouth again, presumably to say something else, but Louis is saved by a knock on the door. “That’ll be Zayn and Niall,” Louis tells Liam, and Liam gingerly sets down the bag he’s holding, goes to open the door.

Niall bounds in, clearly excited, followed by Zayn, who’s got something tucked under his arm. “Hiya lads,” Niall says, and reaches over and gives Louis a hug. “This is exciting, isn’t it? A séance! I thought they only did this in the films.”

“Well, we’re doing one now,” Louis says, primly accepting a hug from Zayn. Zayn takes a seat next to Louis’ right, Niall to Louis’ left, and Liam right across him. “You got the Ouija board, Z?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, pulling out the thing under his arm. He places it in between them all.

There’s a silence. “Um,” Liam starts. “Why is the Ouija Board…sparkly?”

Because it _is_. The board is _garish_ —bright purple letters and numbers stark against the baby pink background. Its edges are outlined in purple glitter, and on the top, the words _My First Ouija Board_ are proudly printed in sparkling silver in some terrible, cursive font.

“Zayn,” Louis says. “Where _exactly_ did you get this Ouija board?

“Toys ‘R’ Us,” Zayn answers, brushing stray pieces of glitter off his shirt. “In the girl’s section.”

“… _Why_?”

“Google said so,” Zayn replies, completely unbothered. He digs into his pocket, and Louis can only watch incredulously as he pulls out a sparkly red planchette and drops it onto the board. “Here.”

Well. It’s an Ouija board, all right. “Well,” Louis says, picking up the planchette. Some of the red glitter transfers onto his fingertips, and he wipes it off on Liam’s knee. “I guess it works. How about you, Niall? Do you know how to perform a séance?”

Niall grins at him. “Fuck yeah.” And then he’s reaching into his jacket and pulling out some paper. “Lifted the whole thing from WikiHow.”

“WikiHow?” Louis asks, as Niall smooths out his print outs. Sure enough, the top part of the page reads _WikiHow_ , and the print out is covered with those terrible vector photos from the website.

Niall nods. “Best website ever,” he says.

Louis has to refrain from arguing about that. “And the candles?”

“They’re here,” Liam says, pulling out four different sized candles from the bag he’d placed on the floor earlier. He arranges them in a little lopsided square in between the four of them.

“Okay,” Louis says. He looks at Liam, then Niall, then at Zayn. He nods. “Now we’re ready.”

. . .

**_ How to Perform a Séance, by Louis, Liam, Niall, Zayn (with credits to WikiHow) _ **

  1. **_Make sure everyone is ready to take part in the séance. Have everyone sit in a circle._**


  1. **_Light the candles_** **.** ** _Make sure electric lighting has been turned off or dimmed._**



(“Wait,” Louis says, as Liam lights the candles. He takes a deep breath, and the strong, cloying scent of… _something_ fills his lungs. “Are those candles _scented_?”

Liam colours a little bit. “They were the only ones left in the store!”)

  1. **_Join hands and close your eyes to begin the séance._** ** _Holding hands closes the circle and allows your energy to build up inside the circle._**



(“Liam,” Zayn says, “why’re your hands so sweaty?”

Liam looks offended. “What do you mean _my_ hands? Your hands are the sweaty ones!”)

  1. **_Focus on the purpose of the séance to help you make contact. If you choose, the person acting as the medium can state the purpose aloud to keep everyone’s thoughts on it._**



(“The purpose of this séance is to see if ghosts actually exist,” Niall says aloud, tone somber.

“And to tell Grimshaw to suck it,” Louis adds.

“And to tell Grimshaw to suck it.”)

  1. **_Recite an opening incantation if you’re acting as medium._** ** _The opening incantation officially begins your séance and invites the spirits to join your circle._**



(“Hello, Spirits,” Niall says. “Welcome. To our circle. We’ve got fun and games. We got everything that you want honey, we know the names.”

Zayn frowns at him. “Isn’t that the lyrics to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’?”)

  1. **_Ask the spirit a question when you feel it’s near._**



(“I feel like the spirit is near,” Niall says. “Do you feel like it’s near?”

“What’s a spirit supposed to feel like?” Liam asks.

Niall thinks for a moment. “Spirit-y,” he says. He waves his and Louis’ joined hands around. “Like, you know, you just…you just _know_ , you know?”

“…No?” Liam says, confused. “I don’t know?”

“I don’t know either,” Louis pipes up.

“Useless, the lot of you,” Niall mutters, and it takes a bit of maneuvering, but Louis manages to kick Niall in the shin.)

  1. **_Hold hands throughout the séance to maintain the circle_**.



(“My forehead’s itchy,” Niall complains. “Can you scratch it for me?”

“Where?” Louis asks. He lifts their joined hands together, using the nail of his index finger to scratch at Niall’s forehead. “Here?”

“A little to the left.”

“Here?”

“A little bit more.”

“Here?”

“Okay, to the right a bit.”

“Here?"

“Perfect.”)

  1. **_Decipher the spirits answers to your questions._**



(“Wait,” Zayn says. “We gotta put our fingers on the planchette, like in the films.”

“But how do we do that without letting go of each other’s hand?” Liam asks.

“ _Could_ we do it without letting go of each other’s hand?” Louis asks.

“Let’s try,” Niall says, and tries to place his and Louis’ joined hands on the planchette.

They can’t do it.)

  1. **_End the Séance when you’re ready._**



(“Okay,” Louis says, one finger on the planchette. “Someone is definitely pushing the thing.”

“It’s Liam, Liam’s pushing it,” Zayn replies.

“No, I’m not!” Liam answers. “It’s Niall, I swear!”

“What?” Niall demands. “I bet it’s Zayn!”

“It’s not me!”

Louis does his best to keep his expression serious. He very subtly pushes the planchette towards ‘S’, trying his best not to break into a grin. “Lads,” he says gravely. “It just spelled ‘penis’ again.”)

. . .

“Well, that was fun,” Niall says, yawning. It’s a little past two in the morning—the Ouija board had become far more entertaining than Louis’d thought, and that, coupled with the beers Niall brought, meant that they ended up playing with Ouija board for about an hour, spelling out increasingly obscene words and making the others guess what it was. Louis had managed spelled out five words that referred to ‘dick’ before Zayn had complained, and words referring to the genitals were banned.

Fuck Zayn, though. Really. No matter what he says, Louis maintains that ‘love rod’ was the best contribution to the game.

“It was,” Liam responds to Niall. He leans back on his hands. “But I thought séances were supposed to be creepy, not fun.”

“Well, they’re creepy when you actually manage to call a ghost,” Niall replies. “But we weren’t able to do that.”

“I wonder why,” Zayn muses.

“Probably because there wasn’t a ghost in the first place,” Louis interjects triumphantly. He feels a little giddy, actually—although the séance had been a little all over the place, they did everything Niall (and WikiHow) told them to do, and no spirits made contact with them and no ghosts walked through the walls and tried to scare them. “Which means I get my commission _and_ my bonus, and Grimshaw can _suck_ it.”

Zayn, because he’s still mad about Louis spelling out words about the male anatomy, ignores him. “I think there is a ghost,” he muses. “I mean, this flat feels a little strange, don’t you think? Maybe we just weren’t spiritual enough.”

Niall gasps dramatically. “Are you saying I’m a shit medium?”

“You recited the lyrics to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ as our opening incantation, so, yeah, I’m saying you’re a shit medium.”

“I’ll have you know,” Niall says, impassioned, “ _one_ , Guns ‘n’ Roses are one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and _two_ , Welcome to the Jungle is a universally loved song. Even ghosts should jam out to Welcome to the Jungle.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “I think he just didn’t like our Ouija board.”

Zayn stills. “Our Ouija board is _perfect_ ,” he hisses at Niall. Throughout the séance, Zayn had steadily grown more and more attached to it, to the point that he’d whispered to Louis that he ‘thinks it’s fucking sick, this board’. “It has letters, it has numbers, it has a planchette. What else do you need from an Ouija board?”

“I don’t know.” It’s Liam who responds. “No glitter, maybe?”

“Can I just interject there,” Louis speaks up, crossing his arms. “You’re acting all high and mighty like you did your part of the séance right, when you brought _scented candles_.” He rolls his eyes. “And they didn’t even have the same scent—two was vanilla, one was lavender, and one was fucking _Old Spice_ , Payno.”

The mixture of all those scents had become cloying, after a while. Louis feels like his nose and his lungs have become permanently damaged.

“I _told_ you, it was the only one left in the store,” Liam says, rolling his eyes right back at Louis. “They weren’t that bad.”

“It smelled _terrible_ , Liam. I’m sure that if there ever was a ghost, he wouldn’t appreciate that at all.”

“I don’t know,” someone else says, and it takes Louis a moment to realize that _that_ is a brand new voice. One he doesn’t know at all. “I quite liked it.”

There’s a silence. “Zayn…?” Louis hedges. He turns to look over at Zayn, finds Zayn looking back at him wide eyes. “Was that you?”

“No,” Zayn replies. “Liam?”

“No,” Liam says, his voice trembling. “Niall?”

Niall, Louis notices, is as white as a sheet. He shakes his head, his lips pressed together.

Okay. _Okay._ This is fine. This is great. This is…probably nothing, right? Probably just them hallucinating because of Liam’s stupid candles.

Yeah, that’s it.

Except, _no_ , because when Louis turns around slowly, his mind counting _one, two, three_ , he finds himself staring at a boy he’s never fucking seen in his life.

He’s _tall_ —that’s the first thing that registers in Louis’ head when he spots him, standing with his hands behind his back. Tall, with curly hair, staring at them with the widest, greenest eyes Louis has ever seen. And wait, are those _dimples_? Louis didn’t know ghosts could have dimples.

Because he’s definitely a ghost, this boy. At first glance he looks normal, standing there pigeon-toed in a band shirt ( _The Ramones_ , Louis can’t help but note incredulously), dark jeans, and some boots, with rings on both hands, and tattoos littering his left arm—a sleeve made of anchors and names and roses and other completely unrelated things. But he’s also a little bit translucent; if Louis focuses, he can see the outline of the furniture, the design of the wallpaper through him.

“Hi,” the boy—the _ghost_ —says to Louis. His face shifts; somehow his dimples dig deeper into his cheeks. His eyes flit from Louis, to Niall, to Liam, and finally to Zayn, and his face goes from shocked to elated. “I’m Harry.”

At in that exact moment, standing between three of his best friends and staring at a (quite handsome) ghost, Louis can only think one thing.

Nick Grimshaw was _right_.

. . .

“A ghost.” Niall is the first one to speak, trembling terribly beside Louis. “You’re…an actual ghost.”

“I guess,” Harry says, frowning. He looks down, turns his hands over. “Doesn’t feel that way, though.”

Louis elbows Niall. “Do something,” he hisses. “You’re the medium, _do something_.”

There’s a _ghost_ in the vicinity. An actual, fucking ghost. Standing there and grinning at them like this is the best thing he’s ever seen in his undead life.

“Oh, right.” Niall snaps out of whatever terror he’d fallen into, and clears his throat, raising both his hands. “Oh, holy ghost—”

“I don’t think he’s the holy ghost, Niall,” Louis tells him.

“Oh, ghost,” Niall amends. “We pray—"

“Wait, we’re praying?” Liam interjects, suddenly snapping into action. He seems to have somehow recovered his voice, and he rounds on Niall. “Why’re we praying?”

“For the ghost,” Niall replies. “I read that praying to God banishes ghosts.”

“ _What_?” Liam asks incredulously. “Who said that?”

“People,” Niall says self-importantly. “WikiHow.”

“Why do you get all your supernatural information from WikiHow?”

“Well, what should we do, then, Liam?” Niall says, throwing his hands up. “You got any better ideas?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then we’re praying.”

“I can’t pray with you guys,” Zayn cuts in serenely. “I’m Muslim.”

“Oh, jeez, sorry, I forgot,” Niall scratches the back of his head, thinking. “Should we pray to Allah instead?”

In the midst of this mess, Harry’s eyes find Louis’, and Louis’ a bit thrown off by how _green_ they are. “You guys are like those stupid people in the horror films,” he says, far too gleefully, and. You know what, Louis can’t even be offended, because he’s a hundred percent right. “What’re your names?”

And Louis doesn’t know much about ghosts, doesn’t know if he should give their names to the ghost (because don’t names hold like, some sort of power?), but Harry is still grinning and he doesn’t _seem_ hostile and he’s really kind of attractive, and Louis has a soft spot for cute boys, as well as the brain of the person who dies five minutes into the horror film.

He points to himself. “I’m Louis,” he says. He points to Liam, who’s saying something about prayer. “Liam.” He points to Niall, who’s doing his best to speak over Liam. “Niall.” He points to Zayn, who’s nodding at whatever points they’re making. “Zayn.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Harry says politely. “I’d shake your hand but,” he waves his hand about, “It takes me a bit of effort, so I’d rather not. Now, what’re you guys doing in my home?”

And in a split second, Louis remembers why he’d organized this whole thing in the first place. “I’m a real estate agent,” he tells Harry, who _oohs_ like it’s a profession that warrants that kind of reaction. Seriously, what kind of ghost is this? “Um, anyway, this flat has been on the market for almost a year now, and I’m supposed to get it sold by the end of year.”

And here, Harry’s expression changes. “Were you the one letting random people into my flat?” He asks, something fierce in his tone.

“Um, that was the other real estate agents, not me,” Louis says quickly, because although Harry doesn’t seem like he’s about to rain fire and brimstone down on them, all that could quickly change in a moment. “Bebe, Aidan, Luke…but yeah, I’m also going to be doing that in the near future.”

“But why?” Harry looks confused, his brows furrowed.

“Because I need to sell this flat.”

“But you can’t,” Harry says.

“Why not?”

“It’s mine.”

“No it’s not,” Louis replies.

“Yes it is,” Harry says. “I live here so it’s mine.”

“You’re a ghost, Harry,” Louis tells him, and genuinely, this must be one of the most surreal moments in Louis’ life. Three in the morning, arguing with a ghost about a gorgeous London flat. “I don’t think ghosts can legally own property.”

“Whatever,” Harry says, crossing his arms. “The point is, I live here, this is my _home_ and I’m not leaving this flat. And I don’t want anyone else living here, either.”

Louis suddenly remembers the five people who’d come close to buying the flat, who’d backed out during the last inspection. He gasps. “Were you _sabotaging_ the attempts to buy this flat?”

“Sabotaging is a big word,” Harry replies. “I prefer to call it more of a ‘nudge in the right direction’.”

“The ‘right direction’?”

“Out the door and never to return.”

Louis stares at him incredulously. “You can’t seriously be doing this,” he tells Harry. “You’re not even _alive_ , like—lads, _help me out here_.”

Immediately, Zayn, Liam and Niall stop arguing, springing back into their positions beside Louis. Niall raises his hands again. “Oh, ghost,” he says solemnly. “We are telling— _not_ praying—to God, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, and all the other deities out there, to banish this ghost from this place. Amen.” He picks up a bottle of water ( _Holy water_ , Niall had called it earlier this evening, after spending about five minutes praying over it), uncaps it, and tosses it towards Harry.

The water arcs up in the air, passes through Harry, and lands with a splash on the hardwood. There’s a pregnant pause. Louis looks at Harry, waits desperately for something, _anything_ to happen. For him to disappear, maybe. Or for him to get sucked up by an invisible vacuum, like in the films.

But, no such luck. Harry doesn’t so much as flicker. “Nope,” he says cheerfully. “Still here.”

“Damn,” Niall says. He turns to Louis, his eyes wide. “Guess we’re stuck with him.”

. . .

Louis refuses to be stuck with a ghost. He simply _refuses_.

 _Psychics in London_ , he types into his work computer the next day. He scrolls through the results, reads a short article about Kim Kardashian paying a buttload of money for a psychic. It’s interesting, but it’s not what he needs—the article talks about the ‘aura around you’ and the ‘cosmic energy leading you to certain decisions in your life’, and while Louis can appreciate that, he’s not really looking for a cosmic energy reading. He’s looking for a ghost buster.

 _Ghostbusters_ , he types, and immediately has to erase the search because Google starts showing him results about the film.

 _Ghostbusters in London_ warrants similar results, but more specifically about the London premiere.

 _Ghostbusters in London for hire_ actually gives him the results he wants, and he spends a few moments reading through the different offers. He finds a team that he _thinks_ would work well for what he needs, but then closes out of the window when he sees the price. He’s not rich enough to be throwing _that_ kind of money on a ghost busting team, and he doesn’t think James will approve that budget request.

Guess that only leaves one thing.

He opens a new window, types in _how to get rid of a ghost._ There are hundreds of results for a DIY-ghostbusting, blog articles and _Reddit_ threads on ghosts fading after a set amount of time or after doing certain things, and Louis cracks his knuckles, starts reading through the results, copying down the ones that look like they might work.

. . .

Two days after that, Louis gathers Liam, Niall, and Zayn, and they march to the flat armed with cleaning supplies. The flat is empty when they enter, but it only takes five seconds for Harry to materialize in front of them.

“You really have to stop barging into my home,” he says, leaning against the wall.

Louis ignores him. “Liam,” he says. “Scrub the bathroom. Niall, the bedroom. Zayn, the living room. And I’ll do the kitchen. I want this place nice and tidy by the end of the day.”

“Wait,” Harry says, as they all disperse. Louis walks into the kitchen, and for some reason, Harry decides to follow him, materializing on the counter. “Are you _cleaning_ my flat?”

Louis rolls his eyes, fills his bucket with water. “Cleansing,” he answers shortly. The website he’d gone on had told him that a way to get rid of ghosts in an area is to clean it from top to bottom, sweep away all the dust and dirt and eventually, the essence of the ghost.

However, Harry either doesn’t know that little tidbit of information or refuses to see it like that, because his eyes grow touched. “That is so sweet,” he says, and he looks a bit like he’s about to cry. “It’d been getting a bit dusty in here, and it’s so hard for me to clean nowadays.”

“Yeah, well.” Louis dumps some liquid soap into the bucket, dipping his sponge into it and swiping it viciously on the counter beside Harry, leaving liquid bubbles in its wake. “It’s not for you, it’s to get rid of you.”

“Who said?” Harry says.

“The internet,” Louis says. “Now get off of there, I want to clean the counter.”

“You _do_ know you can always clean through me, right?” Harry answers, but he hops off the counter anyway. Louis scrubs at the position he’d just vacated, imagining that he’s scrubbing away some of Harry’s ghostly essence, chipping away at him slightly. He knows it doesn’t work like that, but. One can hope.

It takes him a moment to realize that Harry is staring at him with an odd expression on his face. “ _What_ ,” Louis demands, dropping the sponge back in the bucket.

“Have you ever cleaned before?”

Not properly, but Harry doesn’t need to know that. Louis clears his throat. “Why are you asking?”

Harry points at the counter, to where little dust particles are now stuck onto the counter. Ah, _shit_. “Maybe you should’ve dusted first before soaping the counter down,” he suggests, a bit too late.

Louis hates him. “I hate you,” he says morosely, and goes to fetch a cloth to wipe it all away.

. . .

By the end of the day, Louis knows how to clean everything properly—knows to sweep before mopping, knows to dust before vacuuming—thanks to Harry. The flat, now clean, looks even more gorgeous, each surface sparkling, reflecting sunlight and generally looking a lot brighter. It would honestly be a piece of cake selling this flat, Louis thinks, if not for the ghost standing smack dab in the middle room, turning around and taking in how _clean_ everything is.

Louis suspects that the person who suggested ‘cleansing’ the place didn’t encounter a ghost with the same vitality for being alive as Harry does.

“Wow,” Harry says, and Louis thinks he hears a bit of a waver in Harry’s voice. “Thank you, guys. Truly.”

“No problem!” Niall replies cheerfully, on instinct, and Louis pinches him in the arm.

“We didn’t do this for him,” he hisses.

“Oh, right,” Niall says, and clears his throat. “It was actually a problem. It was _all_ the problems.”

Sometimes, Louis doesn’t really know what to do with Niall.

Harry however, seems to be endeared by him, because his grin is growing wider. “Yeah?” He asks.

Niall nods, opening his mouth to speak but Louis decides to cut him off before he can. “Yeah,” he says. “Now, it would really solve _all_ our problems if you just left now. Disappeared. Shoo. Bye now.”

“I don’t know about that,” Harry says, still grinning like a shithead. “I think, now that everything’s clean, I kind of want to stay even more. Have a party, maybe even put on some music—” and here he snaps his fingers, and the four of them jump when the opening chords of _…Baby One More Time_ comes playing out of the stereo.

“Really?” Zayn tells Harry, as Liam, for some reason, starts singing along. “ _Really?_ ”

Harry shrugs unapologetically, still grinning. “It’s Britney, bitch.”

. . .

Their second attempt at getting rid of Harry involves a candle, some matches and ten sage sticks. It goes well for a bit, the flat filling up with smoke and that earthy scent, but then suddenly there’s a beeping and there are sounds of people running through the hallways and _oh, shit they just triggered the smoke alarm_.

Harry’s _still_ laughing at them when they come back inside after the evacuation.

. . .

Their third attempt isn’t even worth mentioning. It really isn’t.

(“What do you want me to do with these?” Liam asks, confused. He’s holding three bags filled to the brim with useless fucking _crystals_.

“I’ll take them,” Harry volunteers, somehow managing to lounge on the couch without phasing through.

Louis ignores him. “Whatever you want,” he says. “Just make sure I never see another fucking crystal again in my life.”)

. . .

“Lads,” Louis whines, burying his head into the couch pillows. “I don’t know what to fucking do.”

It had been a long, arduous week, filled with organizing showings and fixing paperwork and arguing with a stubborn, fucking _ghost_ whose undead purpose seems to be to make Louis’ life as miserable as possible. Louis has gotten to the point that given the chance, he would straight up murder Harry, if Harry wasn’t already dead.

Something cold presses against his arm, and Louis looks up, takes the beer Liam offers him. He gulps half of it down at once. “I’ve got two people who want to look at the flat next week and Harry the dickhead _refuses to stop haunting the walls_.”

“To be fair,” Zayn says from the other couch, “it was his home before.”

“Yeah,” Louis retorts, “but now he’s dead. He’s really just got to give it up already.”

Louis understands the sentiment—he truly does, but really, Harry has _got_ to move on to the afterlife. Or wherever people go where they die. To hell, maybe, because Louis doesn’t think God would want someone as annoying as Harry in heaven. He’d probably bother all the angels and saints and have Britney Spears blasting from the clouds.

Hopefully Louis doesn’t end up like Harry when he (inevitably) dies. He’d like to think he’d be a graceful ghost, one that’d accept that his time has come and just gracefully transcend the physical plane of existence.

“Mate, I don’t think he’s going to give it up,” Niall pipes up from where he’s curled up beside Zayn. “I don’t know him at all, but he seems to enjoy just hanging around. I suggest you give up and have James assign a different agent to sell the flat.”

“ _No_ , Niall,” Liam interjects, before Louis can even say anything. “Louis, don’t do that. Think of the commission.”

It is a pretty big amount. And, adding the hypothetical bonus he gets, Louis would be rolling in it. “That’s true,” Louis says carefully.

“I’m sure there’s a way to get rid of him,” Liam continues. He’s frowning, his forehead furrowed. “We can look on the internet, or—"

Niall snorts. “We’ve already looked on the internet,” he says. “We tried getting rid of him _thrice_. He just watched, laughed at us, and told us to ‘come back soon’.”

Before they’d left the last time, Harry had waved at them, told them that they were the ‘greatest entertainment he’d had in a while’, and told them to come back soon. Louis’ still a little butthurt about that.

“Well,” Liam says diplomatically, “we could hire someone.”

“Who?” Niall shoots back. “And do you know how to verify that these mediums on the internet are the real thing, Payno?” He shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for ideas to get rid of him, but. Let’s face it, we’re a little bit lost at sea here.”

“Well,” Zayn pipes in, “what if you asked him nicely?”

There’s a pause. Louis stares at him.

“Ask…him nicely?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, unbothered by the three pairs of eyes suddenly on him. “Like, ask him nicely to leave. He used to be a person, he knows how to communicate with us, so. Ask him.”

Zayn has to be high. He _has_ to be. There’s no fucking way he’s sitting there just casually suggesting for Louis to go and say _can you pretty, pretty please leave?_ to Harry. There’s no fucking way.

Louis leans forward, squints to check if Zayn’s eyes are red-rimmed. “You think that by _asking nicely_ , I could banish the ghost?”

“Well, it works for everything else in life,” Zayn replies. “So, I don’t see why not. And stop staring at me like that, Lou, I’m not high right now."

“Are you sure?” Liam asks skeptically.

“Sure that I’m not high, or sure about asking nicely?”

“Both,” Liam answers.

Zayn frowns. “I think I’d know if I smoked a joint,” he tells Liam. “And no, I’m not sure, but. There’s no harm in trying, is there?”

Liam shrugs. “I still think we could come up with something better,” he says.

“Yeah,” Louis says, his mind turning.

. . .

The thing is, Zayn’s got a point. It _could_ work.

The more Louis mulls it over in his head, the more he sees its pros, and the more open to the idea he becomes. Harry, in his ghostly form, still talks and acts like a human, and quite a lot of people have managed to go far in life just by _asking_. Like that random proverb says: If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. Or something like that.

So the next day, Louis finds himself with the keys to the flat in hand, finds himself on the doorstep. He unlocks the door slowly, listens for the click, and lets himself inside. The living area is empty, and Louis takes a moment to think _why the actual fuck is this happening to me_ , before he’s taking a deep breath and speaking.

“Harold?” He calls.

Immediately, the air in front of him shimmers a little, and Harry appears in front of him, so suddenly that Louis jumps a little. “Louis,” he says, pronouncing the _s_ the way he’s _not_ supposed to. He leans against the wall in an effort to look cool; it just makes him look like an idiot. “You came back.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Of course I did,” he says. “I still have to sell this flat.”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t been present in the last few ghostbusting attempts. “How’s that going, by the way?”

“Terrible,” Louis snaps, “because there’s a fucking ghost that _just won’t leave_.”

Harry hums. “Maybe you should take it as a sign,” he says sagely. “Give up trying to sell the flat.”

It’s actually insane, Louis think, how _human-like_ Harry is. He can see him clear as day; can read the names _Johnny-Joey-Deedee-Tommy_ on his shirt, can see the mischievous sparkle in his green eyes and the dimples digging craters in his cheeks. Can see the way that one curl drops across his forehead, brushing against his eyebrows, can see the sharp jawline with just a hint of scruff.

Can see Harry, in his entirety, grinning at him like the fucking Cheshire cat, all because he’s trying to _rile Louis up_.

 _Bullies will leave you alone if you don’t give them the reaction they want_ , Louis remembers his old school principal saying one time in a school-wide assembly, and right now, he’s never been more thankful for that useless piece of advice. Harry has clearly been trying to pull at his pigtails because he thinks Louis’ reactions are hilarious, and Louis has been standing there and giving him exactly what he wants.

 _Well_ , he thinks. _Time to switch tactics._

His principal probably never thought he’d be remembering that piece of advice on a ghost, but hey. There’s quite a lot of things his principal never would’ve thought about him.

“No,” Louis says deliberately, slowly. He steps forward, meets Harry’s eye with his. He forces himself to smile as sweetly as he can, before dropping his chin, just a little bit. “Please, Harry,” he says, making his eyes bigger in a way that he _knows_ makes him look far too innocent than he actually is. “I’d really appreciate it if you left this flat."

And—okay, to be completely honest he really doesn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t for Harry to blink, for his grin to fall; wasn’t for his cocksure expression to change into something a little more…stunned. 

Huh.

Louis holds his expression, takes another step forward. “ _Please_ ,” he cajoles, and for some reason, Harry swallows instinctively, his throat muscles working despite his ghostly state. Louis flutters his eyelashes a little, and _damn_ , this asking nicely plan is working much better than he thought it would.

There’s a quiet, charged moment. Harry looks like he’s about to give in, his green eyes wide. Louis holds his breath, counts _one, two, three_. And then—

“No,” Harry says weakly. And then he clears his throat, speaks again before Louis can say anything to that. “I mean, _no_ , Louis.” He says, his voice regaining a bit more control.

"Please?” Louis asks again.

“No,” Harry says. His voice still sounds a little weak.

“Pretty please?”

“ _No_.”

“How about with a cherry on top?”

“Nope.”

“Could you at least consider it?”

“I’ve considered it.”

“And?”

“The answer is still no.” Harry pauses, his lips pursing. “Can you stop doing that with your face?”

Louis pouts harder. “What am I doing?”

“ _That_ ,” Harry says, waving a hand at him. “That…puppy dog thing you’re doing right now. Seriously, _stop it_ , it’s very distracting.”

Louis drops the expression, rolls his eyes. “Well, that’s the _point_ of it,” he says. “For you to get distracted and agree to leave so I can finally fucking _sell_ this flat.”

He was so sure it’d work too—the expression that had crossed Harry’s face was one that he was _very_ familiar with. It’s the same dumb expression men at the bar would get whenever Louis would convince them to buy him a drink, the same dumb expression that meant they were beginning to think with their dicks, rather than their heads. The same dumb expression they’d get right before they begin contemplating bringing him home and fucking him six ways to Sunday.

Interesting.

But either Harry the ghost doesn’t have a dick to think with, or he’s just the iron resolve and the willpower that comes from being a sentient spirit with no sex life.

“Wait,” Harry says, and Louis _swears_ he can see the gears turning in Harry’s head. “Are you telling me that you won’t be able to sell this flat with me in it?”

Louis gives him a look. “It’s pretty hard to sell a flat with a ghost just floating around, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” Harry says, unbothered. “I think your inability to sell a flat with a ghost speaks more about your lack of skill as a real estate agent.”

What. “I’ll have you know,” Louis says, crossing his arms, “I can sell this fucking flat whenever the fuck I want.”

“Really?” Harry asks. “Then why are you so adamant in getting me to leave, then?”

“I’m merely being polite,” Louis says. “Offering you the chance to leave before I give this space away to someone who’s _actually alive_.”

“Oh, what a gentleman,” Harry says, a little drily. “But rest assured, I don’t need your courtesy. I’m staying in this flat, because it’s _mine_ and you’re a shit real estate agent who can’t seem to sell anything that’s a little haunted.”

And that. That’s fucking _crossing the line_.

“Yeah?” Louis challenges. He draws himself up to his full height, truly, properly angry now. “I bet you that I can sell this flat with everything in it—yes, including you—by the end of this year.”

“And if you can’t?” Harry asks.

“Then I’ll leave you alone,” Louis says, “and you can continue to haunt whoever tries to buy this space. But if, no, _when_ I manage it, you’ll have to leave the flat and never come back.”

Harry cocks his head, thinking, and Louis tries not to be distracted by how sharp Harry’s jawline is. It’s a shame that Harry’s so fucking good-looking, because he’s a fucking _arse_.

“Okay, fine,” Harry eventually says, crossing his arms. “ _If_ you manage to sell the flat I’ll disappear the instant the people move in.”

“That’s not enough,” Louis says. “You have to swear.”

“I swear it.”

“No, I mean,” and Louis narrows his eyes. “Pinky swear.”

“Pinky swear?” Harry asks incredulously. “ _Really_?”

“Pinky swears are _sacred_ ,” Louis emphasizes, extending his pinky to Harry. “Best believe that if you break this I’ll be coming for your soul.”

“Yeah?” Harry replies. He’s extending his own pinky out to Louis, though, which means he’s in agreement. “I’ll see you in hell, then.”

And then Harry’s face contorts into something like pain, and he’s extending his own pinky back to Louis. When Louis wraps his pinky against Harry’s, he’s a little shocked to feel something warm, something almost _solid_ against it.

He tries not to react too much , but he probably fails, judging by the way Harry’s face morphs into a sheepish expression. “It takes a little bit of effort to touch things,” Harry explains, even though Louis doesn’t even ask. “I just thought it’d feel weird for you to wrap your pinky around nothing,” he says.

“Whatever,” Louis says, even though inside, he’s a little grateful at Harry’s foresight. He shakes their pinkies once, before he pulls away. “It’s on.”

“Oh, it’s on,” Harry parrots, looking somehow like a fucking Disney prince; his grin wide and his eyes sparkling.

And that’s the story of how Louis made a deal with a fucking _ghost_.

. . .

“You did _what_?” Liam exclaims, when Louis recounts the story to them. Beside him, Niall’s mouth is agape, and beside Niall, Zayn is just staring at Louis a little unnervingly. “A fucking _deal_? With the ghost?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Yes, Payno,” he says monotonously. “A fucking deal with the fucking ghost.”

Niall clears his throat. “Well,” he says, “I guess that’s it, then.”

“What’s it?”

“Your life.” Niall bows his head solemnly. “You’ve had a good life, Tommo. But now I think it’s time for us to say goodbye. See you in the next one.”

“He’s not going to _die_ , Niall,” Zayn interjects.

“But he just sold his soul to the ghost—”

“But _why_?” Liam exclaims, before Zayn and Niall can continue bickering. “How did this happen?”

Louis crosses his arms, turns his glare onto Zayn. “I asked nicely.”

. . .

And Louis may be a lot of things—loyal to a fault, incredibly petty, and _sometimes_ a pain in the arse, but if there’s something he’s never been, it’s a loser. His geography teacher (shout out to the grumpy fucker Mr. Bouller) had once told him he wouldn’t amount to anything, but somehow he’d passed sixth form and his A-levels, made it to uni on a partial scholarship.

And now Louis refuses to lose this stupid bet, especially not to a very attractive, very annoying ghost. It’s a battle between the corporeal and the spirit. The living versus the undead.

Which is why, just minutes after getting back to the office, Louis pulls out his data sheet, makes a few calls. Does a bit of paperwork, and by the end of the day, he’s got a whole bunch of showings scheduled for the next month.

. . .

The first week of showings go as smoothly as can be expected with a ghost in the vicinity.

The first ones who come to see the flat are two boys, fresh out of university. It hadn’t taken much to scare them off; all Harry had to do was sit on the couch and flick through the pages of a table magazine. And even though Louis could see him, clear as day, the two boys couldn’t, and there had been some very confused, and very panicked reactions. Eventually, one of the boys decided that he’d seen this exact scene happening in a horror film, and they left.

“We’ll call you,” one of the boys says to Louis, wide-eyed. He doesn’t even manage to shake Louis’ hand, because his friend is pulling him out of the flat, muttering something about not attracting negative energy from the ghost.

The second one is a lady looking for a spacious flat for her and her dog. She lasts a bit longer than the two boys, but not by much; she gracefully peaces out when Harry starts playing with lights, giggling and flicking them on and off like a child.

The third ones come at the end of the week, and are a mother and a three-year old daughter looking to move somewhere closer to the school. They last longer than the last two, but Harry eventually gets to them—the mother and the daughter had managed to ignore the way Harry had flicked the table magazines ominously, and had managed to ignore the flickering of the lights, but hadn’t managed to ignore the Britney Spears album playing through the surround sound. At first, Louis had managed to explain it away as one of the neighbours having a dance party, but then it had grown louder and louder until he’d found himself yelling at them just to be heard.

To their credit, they leave more angry than terrified—because according to the mother, how can she raise her daughter in a good, wholesome environment when the neighbours are out here blasting Britney Spears?

Louis turns around, finds Harry, gyrating obscenely to the music in the middle of the living room floor. He spots Louis looking at him, shakes his hips in a way that’s more clumsy than seductive, and winks; in response, Louis flips him off before he stomps out of the flat.

. . .

“I hate him, lads,” Louis whines into the throw pillows. “I really, _really_ fucking hate him.”

He hears a sigh, feels a hand on his back, rubbing in circles. “We know, Louis,” Zayn says, sounding completely uninterested. “We really, _really_ fucking know.”

. . .

And Louis had tried to be optimistic for the second week of showings, but the optimism he has when he walks into the flat on Monday crashes and burns as the week progresses.

On one hand, the people who request to view the flat seem to be people who’ve been born and raised in the city. People who’ve been born and raised in the city are much more tolerant about everything—their limited exposure to the countryside and the green spaces means they’ve grown up with a healthy amount of cynicism for the supernatural, meaning they’re more willing to explain away things that such as flickering of the lights or the stereo switching itself on. On the other hand, because they’re so willing to explain away things, Harry ends up having to do more and more complex, attention-grabbing, and borderline _absurd_ stuff.

For example, the two university kids who come to look at the flat on Monday don’t care about the lights flickering or the stereo blasting Britney Spears; they _do_ care, however, when the lights start flickering in time to the lyrics of _Toxic_.

The two fresh graduates who come to look at the flat don’t care about the fact that the table magazines seem to open and shut by themselves; they _do_ care, however, when Harry holds the table magazines up and launches them against the walls.

And the couple who come to look at the flat don’t care about the living room furniture suddenly moving an inch to the left every time they leave the room; they _do_ care, however, when they walk out of the kitchen and find the entire living area _ransacked_ , sofa upturned and coffee table laying on its side, books and table magazines strewn about.

“Jesus fuck,” Anna, one half of the couple swears, placing a hand against her heart. “This place isn’t haunted, is it?”

“Haha,” Louis says painfully, keeping his smile firmly in place. Behind her, Harry’s lounging on the upended armchair, flashing Louis a peace sign. “Hahahaha.”

. . .

“Was that necessary?” Louis demands, the instant the last piece of furniture is back in their proper places. “ _Really_ necessary?”

Harry’s smiling. The bastard. “Hello, Louis,” he says politely. “Looks like selling the flat isn’t going well for you. How unfortunate.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis seethes. He plops down on the sofa, and immediately, Harry materializes right next to him, his smile threatening to take over his entire face. “Stay away from me. I’m angry at you.”

“You’re always angry at me.”

“Because you’re damn annoying.” Louis says to him. “I’m half-tempted to bring you back to life just so I can kill you all over again.”

Harry’s eyes light up. “Ooh,” he says, “are you going to call Niall to do this? Please call Niall, he’s a riot.”

Louis makes a mental note _never_ to invite Niall back to this flat, just so Harry can feel some modicum of disappointment. “Niall’s busy,” he says, trying his best not to crumple his papers. Fucking Harry does nothing good to his blood pressure. “Starting tomorrow up until the day you decide to go into actually die.”

“Guess I’ll just stick to hanging out with you, then,” Harry says. “Not a problem. Don’t tell Niall, but I think you’re my favourite.”

Louis decidedly does _not_ want to be his favourite. “Why is it that every time you open your mouth you somehow manage to annoy me even more?”

“`s just my ghostly talent,” Harry says. He even makes jazz hands for effect.

Louis stares at him. “You’re the absolute worst.”

Harry doesn’t say anything to that, so Louis takes to using his phone, occasionally sneaking glances at Harry through his peripheral vision and quietly willing him to go away. Harry, however, _doesn’t_ —he just sits right beside Louis, watching him intently with a furrowed brow. Which.

“Mate, were you a serial killer before you died or something?” Louis demands.

“No,” Harry says. He’s still watching Louis creepily. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t _think_ so?”

“I mean, I guess it’s technically possible,” Harry says, shrugging a shoulder. “But like, I don’t think I’ve ever woken up and had the urge to go on a murder spree, so. Probably not.”

“Wait, what?” Louis sits up, pins Harry with an incredulous gaze. “What do you mean ‘technically possible’? I’m just asking who you were when you were alive."

Harry’s face scrunches up. “Well,” he says. “The thing is…I don’t know who I was when I was alive.”

There’s a pause. “You…don’t know who you were when you were alive,” Louis repeats.

“I mean, I know some stuff,” Harry replies, a little defensive. “Like, I know my name’s Harry. And this is my home.”

“Anything else?”

“Um,” and here, Harry seems to fall deep into thought. “I…like Britney Spears? I mean, I guess I like Britney Spears, her album was the only one in the flat when I woke up like this.”

Louis blinks at him. “So you’re telling me,” he says slowly, “you know nothing about yourself other than the fact that your name is Harry, you live here, and you like Britney Spears?”

“Yeah...?” And Louis doesn’t know what his face is doing, but it’s enough of a reaction to make Harry roll his eyes. “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” he says. “I know some _other_ stuff. Like the plot of _The Notebook_ or like, a horror film I might’ve watched before, And okay, maybe, it’s not much, but it still tells you a little bit of who I am as a person.”

“Yeah,” Louis answers. “Somehow, it just reinforces the idea that you’re annoying.” He clears his throat. “But how long have you been...like this?”

“Annoying?”

“ _Translucent_ ,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “You’ve probably been annoying all your life. And very clearly, some time after that.”

That makes Harry smile, one that’s a lot less teasing and a lot more genuine. “Well, I’m not actually sure,” he says. “But, I think…? Eight months, give or take. Based off that,” he says, pointing at something, and when Louis turns to look, he finds himself staring at a calendar.

“And do you remember what happened that made you like this?”

Harry shrugs. “I died.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “No, I meant like _how_.”

Harry makes a thoughtful noise. “I don’t know.”

“Huh.” To be fair, Louis doesn’t know much about ghosts, but he’d always thought ghosts would always know how they went from life to afterlife. He thought that the cause of death would be part of the ghosts’ character building. Like Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter. “So you’re a ghost who has no idea who you are, no idea how you died—just goes and haunts this flat because of some weird ghost feelings you have?”

“Hey,” Harry replies, a little affronted. “I stay because even though I don’t remember much, I remember that this is my _home_. And if it’s something that I remember, it means it’s fucking important to me.”

“I think you’re just full of shit,” Louis replies, “and that you’re really doing this to piss me off.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “You’re just still angry that your marketing skills are no match for my haunting skills.”

“Harry,” Louis says exasperatedly. “You have no fucking haunting skills. You just move things around and laugh like a fucking idiot.” Honestly, Louis’ kind of annoyed that none of his clients can see Harry, because if they _did_ , they’d probably be on the same boat as Louis when it comes to murdering him. Harry takes way too much fucking _glee_ at the terrified expressions of everyone leaving.

“But that’s what a haunting _is_ ,” Harry defends. “What, did you think I’d go and possess things? It’s already pretty hard to move things around as a ghost, you know. It’s a lot more effort than you think.”

“Whatever,” Louis says. “What-fucking- _ever_.”

. . .

There’s a loud crash that comes from the bedroom about five minutes after Louis has just let the last client out. Louis takes a moment to close his eyes, take five deep breaths, before storming towards the direction of the bedroom.

“If you’ve broken a piece of furniture thinking it’ll help you win the bet, I’m going to break your fucking face,” he yells, throwing open the door so wide that it bounces off the wall.

Inside, Harry’s standing in the middle of the room, attempting to pick something up. He hasn’t broken anything, thank God—all the bedroom furniture is pristine and intact—but he _does_ seem to have knocked a bunch of things off the right bedside table.

“Okay,” Harry says easily. “Break my face. I dare you.”

Louis ignores him. “How on _earth_ did you manage to do that?” He asks, staring at the lamp, alarm clock, and various generic photo frames scattered on the floor. He picks the lamp up, breathes a quiet sigh of relief when he realizes it isn’t broken. “I thought you fucking _phased_ through things, Harry.”

Harry shrugs. “I miscalculated.”

“Miscalculated _how_?”

“Just…you know what, it’s hard to explain,” Harry says. “Could you help me with this, please? I can’t seem to get it.”

“I’m not your slave,” Louis snipes, but he goes to help Harry anyway. He sets the lamp nicely back on the bedside table, then picks up the alarm clock and the photo frames, setting it right beside the lamp. “What were you even trying to do, anyway?”

Harry shrugs. “It’s nothing,” he says, but the tone of his voice tells Louis that it _was_ something important. But before Louis can continue to press him on that, Harry’s expression changes; the bright grin Louis’ come to know back on his face as if it’d never left. “Last one to the living room is a rotten egg,” he yells, and then disappears right in front of Louis.

A five-year-old. Harry’s got the fucking humour of a five-year-old. And somehow, that just serves to irritate Louis even _more._ “Fuck you!” he calls angrily, hears the peals of Harry’s laughter from the living room.

. . .

“Wait,” Liam says, his fingers hovering above the keys of his laptop. “What do you want me to type?”

“Harry,” Louis answers immediately, crowding in beside him. “ _H-A-R_ —”

“I know how to spell Harry,” Liam grumbles. He types it down and presses the enter key.

“I can see that, Louis says, trying not to laugh when immediately Liam has to go back and edit the search because he’d typed _hary_. “I mean, you did a pretty bang up job there, Payno.”

Liam flips him off.

“What’s it say?” Calls Niall, from where he’s lounging on Liam’s couch.

“ _P_ _rince Harry, Duke of Sussex, KCVO ADC is a member of the British royal family_ ,” Liam reads, his brow furrowed. “ _He is the younger son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales—_ ”

“Okay, I’m gonna stop you right there,” Louis says. “I’m pretty sure Prince Harry of Sussex is still alive.”

“Well, you never know,” Liam says, shrugging. “Maybe he died in the last year.”

“Didn’t he just welcome a baby in the last year?”

“I don’t know,” Liam replies. “Royals, man. They’re always welcoming a baby somewhere. Any other ideas?”

“Try ‘Harry dead’,” Zayn replies from the seat beside Niall.

Liam immediately begins typing, flying over the keys. “ _Harry Morton, founder of Pink Taco, has died at 38_.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow. “It could be him.”

“Don’t think so,” Louis replies, scanning the article quickly. “It says he lived in Beverly Hills.” And okay, Louis doesn’t know much about Harry, but he’s always been adamant that he lived in London, in _that_ specific flat.

Which is. Fucking annoying, if you ask Louis.

“Search ‘Harry ghost’,” Niall chimes in helpfully.

“I don’t think—” Louis starts, but isn’t able to finish because Liam’s fingers are flying over the keys.

“ _Hogwarts Ghosts_ ,” Liam reads out loud, after the results come up. “ _Each of the four Hogwarts houses has its own ghost_. Do we think Harry is a Hogwarts ghost?”

“Hogwarts doesn’t exist, Liam,” Louis replies.

Liam gapes at him. “How _dare_ you say that,” he says, absolutely offended. “I’ll have you know the wizarding world is _real_ and _true_ —” and then he’s typing ‘does hogwarts exist’ on Google, pulling up conspiracy threads and reading it out loud. Louis rolls his eyes and tries to argue, but then Zayn chimes in and sides with Liam, and then Niall comes to Louis’ defense, and the plan of searching up Harry is all but forgotten.

. . .

It’s a few days later when Louis finds himself sitting in the dark at ten in the evening, because he’s got some very important paperwork to do as well as an episode of _Queer Eye_ to catch up on and his entire building is suffering from a very ill-timed _power outage_.

And it’s normally not a problem, because he could ask the lads if he could go over to their place, but it seems that they’re all a busy tonight—Liam is in Wolverhampton, visiting his parents; Niall is at a concert of some sort; and Zayn, well. Zayn isn’t replying, which means that he’s probably already asleep.

He _could_ work at the café down the street, but it’d probably be packed full of people trying to escape the power outage, and he’s just not in the mood to deal with that, right now. This week has been terrible and all he wants is a place where he can do his paperwork in peace as well as watch someone get a make-over and learn to feel absolutely loved.

He sighs, about to suck it up and light a few candles, when he spots the keys to Harry’s flat on his desk. And he really shouldn’t, but the idea plants itself in his brain, puts down roots, and before he can really think about it, he’s got his laptop and his paperwork in his work bag, the keys to the flat in his pocket.

The flat is empty when he lets himself in, and Louis flicks on the switch, sighing in relief as light floods through the room. He settles himself on the floor, digs through his bag for his phone.

It takes all of five seconds for Harry to show up, appearing right beside Louis. “Louis!” He says loudly, obviously to be a dick, and it makes Louis jump up in surprise, banging his knee against the underside of the table.

Louis glares at him, rubs at his knee. “Stop fucking _doing_ that.”

“Nope,” Harry says, because he lives to be contrary. He somehow manages to lean an elbow on the coffee table without phasing through, rests his head in his hand and stares up at Louis, eyes bright. “So what are we doing tonight?”

Louis blinks at him. “ _We_?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I figure if you took the time to search me out at—” he leans over, peeks at Louis’ phone, “—ten-thirty in the evening, you’d want to do _something_ with me.”

“ _We_ are not doing anything together,” Louis replies haughtily. He pulls out his laptop and his papers, spreads them out on the coffee table in front of him. “ _I_ will be finishing some paperwork, and you are free to do…whatever it is you normally do when I’m not here. Terrorize other innocent people, maybe.”

Harry grins. “But no one’s quite as much fun to terrorize as you are, Lou.”

Instead, he turns to his laptop, tries to connect it to the wifi. “Don’t call me that,” he says mildly. “We’re not friends.”

“What do I have to do to be friends with you?”

“Nothing,” Louis replies. “I don’t make friends with ghosts, it ruins the quality of my life.” He scans through the list of networks on his laptop, trying to figure out which one to connect to. “Which one’s the wifi in here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says nonchalantly. “I don’t give out the wifi to people who aren’t my friends.”

Louis gives him the flattest look he can muster. Somehow, that just makes Harry grin even wider. “I really, _really_ fucking hate you.”

“Just be my friend, Lou, it’s really not that hard.”

“Look,” Louis says, pressing two fingers to his temple. He’s getting a headache from simply speaking to Harry, and that’s saying something, because normally Louis’ the one who causes the headache. “I refuse to become friends with a ghost, but because I’m a generous person, I’ll make you an offer. Give me the wifi password and I’ll _graciously_ let you watch _Queer Eye_ with me.”

“ _Queer Eye_?” Harry looks confused. “What’s that?”

“Only the best show you’ll watch in your entire undead life,” Louis replies. “So do we have a deal or not?”

Harry hems and haws, which is irritating because it genuinely does not need that much thought. Finally, he comes to a decision, nodding decisively and scooting closer to Louis. “I’m like, sixty percent sure that’s the wifi in here.” He points at Louis’ screen.

“Sixty percent,” Louis repeats, incredibly unamused. He becomes even more unamused, however, when he catches sight of the network Harry is pointing at. “ _The Lord of the Pings_? Really?”

“One ping to rule them all,” Harry tells him sagely, and Louis can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes as he types that out into the password box. It takes a minute, but his laptop eventually connects, and Harry sits back on his haunches smugly.

Louis refuses to spare a glance in his direction, cues up an episode of _Queer Eye_ , and presses play.

. . .

And as Louis predicted, Harry is riveted by _Queer Eye_.

He shuts up when the episode starts, and is quiet for so long that Louis thinks he’s finally buggered off. But he hasn’t, and is sitting cross-legged right beside Louis, looking quite like a little boy, his eyes shiny and his mouth periodically breaking into a small smile.

Louis manages to work in peace for about two episodes, getting a huge chunk of his paperwork done. But he’s acutely aware of when Harry’s attention shifts, feels it the instant Harry goes from watching the episode to watching _him_.

Louis lets him look for about five minutes. “You know,” he says mildly, “this isn’t really helping your ‘I’m-not-a-serial-killer’ case.”

And it’s interesting, because a normal person would look away, probably stammer out an apology for staring. But Harry doesn’t even look away, just continues watching Louis unabashedly.

“I told you, I’m not a serial killer,” he says.

“Then _why_ are you staring?”

Harry shrugs. “Just thinking,” he says.

“About me?”

“About how nice it’s been having you here,” Harry elaborates. “I get kind of lonely, sometimes.”

It’s a transparent attempt at changing the topic. Louis knows this. But the thing is, he’s feeling rather gracious, and he _has_ gotten quite a bit of his work done, so he rolls with it.

“Do you?” Louis says, leaning back against the sofa. “I would think there were other ghosts you could hang out with.”

Truthfully, Louis’ never really thought much about Harry outside their interactions, never really thought about what Harry would do when Louis isn’t around. But he figures it’s a safe bet, there being other ghosts floating around in that limbo between alive and dead. Lots of people die on a daily basis, anyway. Surely at least _one_ of them is as stubborn as Harry is.

“There are,” Harry says. He looks thoughtful. “At least, I think there are. But I’ve never met them. I’m not actually allowed to leave the flat.”

“Wait?” Louis says. “ _Really_?”

“Well, okay, if we’re being technical about it, I _can_ leave,” Harry says quickly. “Like, I’m not sure how to explain it, but there’s like this, inherent knowledge in me, right?” He taps at his chest, where his heart would be, if he had one. “Like if I want to, I can just disappear forever. Go where the other spirits go. But that’s the only other place I can go. So it’s really just here, or there.” The corner of his mouth ticks up. “And back again.”

“You know,” Louis says mildly, watching him, “I never would have guessed you were a _Lord of the Rings_ fan.”

Harry looks thoughtful. “I actually never would have thought so too, but that make sense,” he says. “Huh. Another fact to add to my list of facts about me.”

“Getting longer, innit?”

“Soon you’ll know everything there was to know about me.”

It’s silent between them for a few moments, and Louis finds that he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Harry. There’s something rather riveting about him, he thinks, a charisma that draws the eye, an energy that somehow manages to capture everyone’s attention. He’d definitely been a charmer when he was alive; Louis’ sure that the combination of his incredibly good looks and his atypical allure was deadly, meant that there were people tripping on their feet over him, hanging on to every word he’d said. He’s a lighthouse, Harry is. An incredibly blinding, incredibly irritating, and yet still incredibly stunning lighthouse.

Louis doesn’t tell him that, though.

But it’s as if Harry can read his mind, because his smile grows a touch smug. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Louis says far too quickly. “Just…wondering, actually.”

“About?”

“The kind of company you keep,” Louis replies. “So you haven’t met any other ghosts, but how about people? Who else have you been talking to besides me and my friends?”

And that seems to be the wrong thing to say, because Harry’s face changes—goes from happy and excited to almost sad and contemplative. He looks at Louis, and he doesn’t have to say anything for Louis to understand.

“No,” Louis says, a little horrified. “ _No_ , it can’t just be us, can it?”

He’d known that not everybody can see Harry—all of Louis’ own clients couldn’t, which made watching Harry move things around in the flat both very annoying and very entertaining, but.

Harry bites his lip. “There were these two women who came one day,” he says, not answering Louis’ question. “This was a few days after I became…” he gestures to himself.

“Who were they?”

Harry’s forehead furrows. “I don’t…know,” he says. “But I felt like I knew them. Felt like they were important to me, somehow. They’d come in and I could just tell they’d been crying, you know?”

Harry pauses. He doesn’t meet Louis’ eye. “I did…everything I could to get their attention,” he says. “To get them to help me. Stood right next to them and yelled in their ear. Tried to grab them, even.” He shrugs. “Didn’t work. They’d left without ever noticing me.” He’s very obviously trying to play it down, trying to make it not seem like such a big deal. But he’s not a good actor, Harry—Louis can see in the set of his shoulders, the curve of his lip, just how much recounting this story hurts him.

“And I tried again and again,” Harry continues. “With the other real estate agents, with the people who’d come to look at this flat, but.” He shrugs. “Eventually, I learned to move things around, flick the lights on and off. But other than that, no one ever saw me.”

“And then we came,” Louis finishes gently. “My friends and I. We could see you.”

“You could,” Harry answers. “And after a few days, you came back and you still could. And it was…I suddenly felt like I was less alone.”

And okay, Louis’ got a lot of issues with Harry—he’s very annoying and his only purpose seems to be to make Louis’ life a lot harder, but that doesn’t mean Louis is _heartless_. He can recognize a genuine request for company when it sits right next to him, when it gazes up at him with an open expression and a vulnerable gaze.

“Well,” Louis says, clearing his throat. Turning back to his paperwork. “Let’s hope you find yourself some company soon.”

“Maybe there’ll be another ghost,” Harry sounds excited by the prospect. “Then there’ll be two ghosts. Imagine that.”

“God, I hope not.”

. . .

The next day, Louis lets himself into the flat, a big stack of papers clutched to his chest. Harry, as always, appears in front of him in a way that’s designed to send someone with a weaker constitution into a heart attack, but Louis’ expecting it this time, and he only jumps a little bit.

“Louis,” Harry greets, as sunnily as ever. “You’ve got a showing today?”

“In about,” Louis checks his phone, “two hours, yeah.”

Harry frowns. “You’re pretty early, then.”

Louis knows. “Thought I’d do my paperwork here,” he says breezily. He avoids Harry’s eyes, pretends to straighten out his papers. “There’s this twat in my office that won’t stop bothering me, right, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re marginally less annoying than he is.”

If Harry suspects that Louis’ up to something, he doesn’t let it show. “Aww,” he answers, a fake pout on his lips. “What do I have to do to be more annoying than he is?”

Louis shrugs, drops to the floor by the coffee table, waits until Harry appears right beside him, his eyes trained on Louis. “Just keep talking,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll say something annoying eventually.”

“Something annoying,” Harry says, but when Louis looks up to glare at him, he finds Harry looking touched. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and Louis bites his lip to keep from smiling, has to force himself to focus on the papers in front of him.

. . .

Things don’t change. Not really.

Harry’s still annoying as fuck and Louis still fucking hates him with a passion except _not really_ , because behind all of Harry’s postured arrogance and his attempts to send Louis to an early grave lies a boy who’s lost, a boy who’s lonely and simply looking for someone to talk to. A boy who doesn’t remember who he is, who’s just clinging on to the little fragments of his life with an iron grip.

So Louis hates him, yeah, but Louis also empathizes with him, and if that results in him spending more time with Harry than he would like to, then _fine_ , whatever.

(But if he’s being honest with himself, it’s not so bad spending time with Harry. When he’s not actively pissing Louis off, Harry is smart, thoughtful and polite, with a penchant for answering in circles and turning normal conversations philosophical. He likes to ask questions and seems genuinely interested in Louis’ answers, and Louis finds himself sharing bits of pieces of his life to Harry—his family, his job, and even his joint birthday-and-Christmas traditions. He’s got much more depth than Louis thought he had, and despite being a ghost who barely remembers anything, it’s easy for Louis to see who he truly is, to see straight in him and see the kind, happy boy he must’ve been when he was alive.)

. . .

“Wait,” Louis says to Harry. “Explain it to me again.”

Harry sighs, rolling his eyes. “I can only touch things if I concentrate,” he repeats monotonously. “And even then it’s not my whole body, just parts of it. Like if I want to pick something up, I have to concentrate on my hand. If I want to wear a hat, I have to concentrate on my head.”

Huh. “That sounds like an awful lot of effort.”

Harry shrugs. “It is. I can’t do it for very long either, because it tires me out. Which is why it’s just easier to stay like this.” He reaches out, and Louis watches as he moves his hand through the corner of the table. “Makes me look like I have mutant superpowers.”

Louis frowns for a moment. “How long can you stay tangible?”

“Like…” Harry blows out a breath. “Fifteen seconds, I guess?”

“You _guess_?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never timed it,” Harry says defensively.

“So let’s.”

“Pardon?”

“Let’s time it,” Louis elaborates, reaching for his phone. “I want to know how long you can stay tangible.”

“ _Why_?”

Louis shrugs. “Science?” He says. “I’m just very curious, me.” He smiles at Harry, as saccharine as possible. “Please?”

Harry looks at him for a beat longer, a furrow in his brow. “You’re a little bit insane, aren’t you?” He says eventually, which isn’t exactly a _no_.

“Well,” Louis answers, already opening the stopwatch app on his phone. “I mean, I can see you, so.”

. . .

At the end of the day, Louis finds out that Harry can stay tangible for as long as thirty seconds. He also finds out that Harry can throw things, but he can’t catch them. Apparently hand-eye coordination is a lot harder when you have to focus on making your hand tangible.

Louis doesn’t stop throwing things at him anyway.

. . .

“What the fuck,” Louis says, staring wide-eyed at the front door, where the lady had just walked out. “What the actual _fuck_.”

Beside him, Harry materializes. “She wasn’t very nice,” he says.

“What do you mean ‘wasn’t very nice’?” Louis asks incredulously. “She was fucking _rude_ , Harry.”

“I was trying to be diplomatic about it.” When Louis chances a glance at him, he finds his expression angry, almost mutinous.

Because Louis is very, _very_ insulted. The client had been terrible—incredibly entitled and rude. She’d demanded Louis hold her stuff while she looked around the flat, had kept up running commentary about how dreadful the building was was and how terrible the view through the bay windows were. And Louis had tolerated it at first, had gritted his teeth and sucked it up, but somehow, as the time passed, she got more and more unbearable. She’d talked so much shit—the flat was apparently, not posh enough for her taste, and the location made her feel like she was unsafe, that there was a high chance of her getting burgled—that throughout the showing, Louis found himself exchanging more and more incredulous looks with Harry.

The last straw had been when she’d demanded that Louis do background checks on all the neighbours, dropped her voice, and said, “between you and me, I’m just not comfortable having those… _darker_ -skinned people near where I live, you know? I’m not racist or anything, it’s just that they make me feel unsafe.”

Louis had stared at her, handed her her purse, and said, “with all due respect, ma’am, go fuck yourself.”

He’s ninety percent sure that he’s going to be receiving a customer complaint tomorrow, but really, he just. Doesn’t care. If she decides to be a bitch, then she deserves to get called out on it, full stop.

“But she doesn’t deserve your diplomacy,” Louis tells Harry, plopping down onto the couch. “She was _terrible_. Fuck her.”

“She was,” Harry’s voice comes from right beside Louis’ ear, startling Louis. Louis glares at him, but Harry doesn’t seem to notice, still frowning angrily at the thought of the lady. “Like, I genuinely can’t believe that there are still people like that. Just…is it _so hard_ to treat people with kindness?”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Louis emphasizes. “Treat people with kindness, _yes_.”

Harry preens. “Twenty-nineteen, philosopher, London.”

“Okay, you’re ruining it.” Louis rolls his eyes, but he can feel the corner of his mouth quirking up. “You know, the _one_ _time_ I could use your help in getting a client to leave, you practically disappear.”

It’s a lie. The instant Louis had been made to carry this woman’s (knock-off) purse, Harry had gotten this weird, almost angry expression on his face. He’d gone all out with the haunting—at one point, he’d even flipped the coffee table right in front of her, smirked when she’d clutched her heart and screamed.

Louis had found himself grinning the entire time.

Harry raises his eyebrow, and Louis thinks he’s about to defend himself, but for some reason, he just rolls with it. “It’s `cause you were doing such a good job by yourself,” he answers. “Figured I’d save myself the effort and just watch you go.”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate you?” Louis asks, no malice in his tone.

Harry shrugs. “Maybe once or twice? I don’t know, certainly not enough times for me to be sure of it.”

“I should say it more, then.” Louis looks around—at the gorgeous décor, at the quirky bay windows, at the expensive furniture artfully scattered. “God,” he says. “And what was all that shite about the flat not being posh enough? I mean, were we looking at the same flat or not?”

“I mean,” Harry starts slowly, “She’s got a point.”

“She does?” Louis says blankly.

“Yeah.” When Louis turns to him, he’s got a twinkle in his eyes. “I mean, it could probably be a bit more posh.”

“How d’you reckon?”

“Think about this,” Harry says, and then he appears across the living room, right beside a blank wall. He traces a large rectangle shape against the wall. “A closet, right here. But not just any closet—one with _fingerprint_ access.”

“Ooh,” Louis says sarcastically, feeling his smile grow. “Great idea, Harry.” He taps his finger against his chin, thinking. “But I still don’t think it’s posh enough. What about, a closet with fingerprint access where she can cryogenically freeze her clothes?”

Harry gasps mockingly, his eyes still twinkling. “Louis, you’re a genius! It should have twenty-four hour surveillance too, she’ll _never_ get robbed.”

“Wouldn’t want that, after all,” Louis says. He makes a rectangle with his hands, peeps through them like he’s an interior designer. “And then: Louis Vuitton wallpaper. Everywhere.”

“Tasteful,” Harry agrees. “And the furniture?”

“Gucci, obviously, because we want the people to know she’s posh enough to afford two different name brands.”

“Perfect.” Harry’s obviously doing his best to stifle his laughter, but Louis can still see his shoulders shake with the effort. “Absolutely perfect. You know, I think you should quit being a real estate agent. You definitely have a calling.”

“I was meant for this, don’t you think?” Louis says arrogantly, finds himself grinning when Harry breaks, giggling at how ridiculous this whole thing is. “Also: flowers. On every single surface. Because, you know, nothing says posh than flower arrangements every single week.”

He’s absolutely taking the piss now, talking out of his arse, but for some reason, Harry’s face changes at the mention of flowers. “Some flowers will really tie it together,” he agrees. “I’d love to see some.”

“What, you’ve never seen _flowers_?”

“Not in a while.”

And, _oh_. Somehow, Louis forgot that Harry was a ghost, that he went about his day following some very specific supernatural rules—having no need to eat, sleep, or drink, phasing through things unless he puts a little bit of effort into it. Forever bound to the perimeter of this flat, unable to leave its four walls.

It’s a little bit sad, when Louis thinks about it.

“Flowers, then,” Louis says decisively. He looks at Harry, holds his gaze with a little intensity. “We’ll definitely have flowers.”

. . .

“Um,” the girl, Eva, says, her blue eyes wide. They slide slowly to where the piano is, the same three notes playing over and over, before snapping back to Louis’ face. “I’ll…I’ll call you. About the. The flat.”

Louis does his best to suppress a sigh. Another client lost, then. “Alright,” he says, and watches her hightail it out of the front door.

He counts to ten, just to make sure she’s really gone, before he’s rounding on Harry. “Can you _please_ stop that,” he snaps at Harry’s hunched back.

Immediately, Harry stops, whirling around on the bench with a mischievous look in his eye. “She seemed lovely,” he tells Louis, laughter in his tone. “Hopefully she appreciated the free piano music.”

“She appreciated it as much as I appreciate your presence,” Louis snarks.

“You mean to say ‘a lot’ then?”

“Fuck off.” Louis shakes his head. “What on earth are you playing, anyway? It sounds like a butchered version of _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_.”

“Hey,” Harry says. “I’d like to see you do better.”

Louis scoffs. “Try me,” he says, and gestures for Harry to scoot over. He laces his fingers and stretches his arms forward, then cracks his neck a little bit. “You’re looking at someone who’s been watching piano tutorials on YouTube since he was fourteen.”

“Wow,” Harry replies, voice as dry as the Sahara. “Absolute wow. How am I ever to compete?”

“You can’t,” Louis says cheerfully. “I’m on a league of my own, me. Now, what was it you were playing?”

At that question, Harry worries on his bottom lip, thinking. “I don’t actually…know?” He says. “There’s just. Like. A tune stuck in my head. And like I know how to play it, know which notes to press, but.” He waves his hands around. “I can’t seem to do it.”

“`Kay,” Louis says, “then tell me how. I’ll play it.”

Harry is silent for a few moments. “You’d do that for me?”

“ _Of course_ not.” Louis rolls his eyes when Harry’s face falls. “Harry. It’s playing the piano, it’s not like you’re asking me to donate an organ.”

“Okay, but _would_ you donate an organ for me?”

“Probably not,” Louis replies. “I still bloody hate you. Now what is it? If you really want to hear this song you have an hour to teach me, because I’ve got to be out of here by three-thirty to make it to my meeting at four.”

Harry hesitates, thinking about it, but he comes to a decision quickly. “Okay,” he says. “But with your level of skill, we probably won’t finish the song in an hour.”

“Like I said,” Louis replies. “Try me.”

. . .

They don’t finish the song in an hour.

If you asked Harry, he’d say it’s because Louis is rusty and out of practice, but the real, honest-to-God truth is that Harry’s just a shit teacher. He spends the first fifteen minutes pointing at different notes, complaining that it sounds wrong, then realizing that it’s because they’re playing on the wrong key. Then Louis has to end up learning everything from the beginning _again_ , with Harry pointing out new notes and Louis doing his best not to confuse what he’d just learned.

“ _No_ ,” Harry says, when Louis plays a dissonant chord. “Your finger goes here—” and Louis jumps, because there’s something brushing against the back of his hand. It takes him a minute to realize that it’s Harry’s fingers, made tangible by whatever ghost powers Harry has. He doesn’t get the time to dwell on it though, because Harry is physically manoeuvring his hands, slotting his fingers into the correct keys.

“There,” Harry says. His hand is warm and solid against Louis’ skin for just a second more until the physical feeling fades away. And it’s nothing—it’s _supposed_ to be nothing, but for some reason, it affects Louis; makes him far too attuned to the beating of his heart against his ribcage, far too attuned to his and Harry’s proximity.

“Play that chord, Louis,” Harry says. Louis sneaks a glance at him, finds that he doesn’t even seem to notice the effect he’s had on Louis, his attention still on the keys in front of them.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Louis snipes weakly, but he plays the chord anyway.

It takes an inordinate amount of time for Louis to realize what song they’re supposed to be playing (because Harry’s a bad _teacher_ ) and for him to realize how it’s supposed to go. And then he thinks, _fuck it all_ and decides to play whatever the fuck he wants to, letting his fingers run through random notes and sound out different chords.

Harry takes it all in stride though, and in true Harry fashion, starts trying to sing along. He’s in the middle of trying to get the words _Louis_ and _blowie_ to rhyme in his, frankly appalling song (to absolutely no success) when James calls Louis.

“We’ll practice again next time,” Harry says cheerfully, when Louis stands up from the piano.

“There’s a next time?”

“Of course there is,” Harry answers easily. “You better practice at home, too. Your parents are paying good money in the hopes of seeing you become a successful concert pianist.”

Honestly, this kid is an idiot. Louis tries not to be too endeared. “Well,” he says, pretending to heave a sigh. “Best not to disappoint them, then. I mean, I gotta make sure my talent makes up for my shitty piano teacher.”

And for some reason, Harry’s expression morphs, turns into one of genuine happiness. Louis smiles back at him, realizes he’s smiling back at a person he should hate, and gets self-conscious; turning away and picking up his bag.

He’s just gotten to the door, a hand on the doorknob when Harry’s voice stops him. “You know,” he says, “I really quite like it when you smile at me.”

Louis bites his lip to stop himself from smiling, flips him off good-naturedly from over his shoulder, and leaves.

. . .

“Tommo, what’s up?” Niall asks immediately, when Louis stops in front of the door to Harry’s flat . “Are we doing another séance?”

“No,” Louis says. Pulls out the keys from his pocket, fits it into the hole. It turns easily beneath his hands, the lock clicking once, twice.

“Another séance?” Liam asks, because he doesn’t know how to fucking _listen_. “But I didn’t bring any candles.”

“I didn’t want you to bring any candles.”

Zayn crosses his arms. “I refuse to do another séance unless Liam apologizes to my Ouija board.”

“And I _told_ you, your Ouija board doesn’t have feelings—”

Louis lets go of the door, claps loudly. “ _Lads_ ,” he says, and they all fall silent, their heads snapping to face him. “We’re not doing another a séance. I invited you here, like I said, to hang out.”

They all blink at him owlishly. “But,” Liam starts out, “this isn’t your flat.”

“I know that.”

“This flat is haunted,” Niall adds.

“I know that too.”

“So why the _hell_ will we hang out in a haunted flat that isn’t yours?” Liam finishes, crossing his arms.

“Because Louis wants to hang out with the ghost.” It’s Zayn who answers, because Zayn knows Louis like the back of his hand, knows how to follow Louis’ hare-brained ideas to their equally hare-brained conclusions. “More specifically, he wants _us_ to hang out with the ghost with him.”

Niall and Liam gasp. It’s so dramatic and over-the-top that it makes Louis want to punch them. “Look,” he says, instead of doing that. “I just feel sorry for him, okay?”

“Why?” Liam asks, bewildered. “He’s a ghost.”

“I know,” Louis says, “But he’s also _lonely_.” It’s pretty obvious, the more time Louis spends with him—he’s always so damn excited whenever Louis is around, following him around the rooms and making cheeky comments here and there. If Louis was held at gunpoint, he’d admit that he thinks it’s a little bit sweet. But it’s also a little bit sad, the fact that Harry has no actual company except for Louis.

He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “We’re the only people who’s ever been able to see him or talk to him,” he continues, watches as his friends’ expressions change from shock to pity. “The other day, he told me that he physically _can’t_ leave the flat. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a little sad.” He pauses. “So like. It’s okay if you don’t want to. You can leave right now, if you want. But I just don’t want him to feel like he’s alone.”

There’s a moment where Louis half-expects his friends to turn on their heel and leave. But then Niall’s hand shoots straight up in the air. “I’ll stay,” he volunteers.

Louis smiles at him. “Thanks, Nialler.

“I guess I’ll stay for a bit,” Liam hedges, still looking a bit skeptical. “Just to make sure he doesn’t, like, possess you or anything.”

Louis snorts. “I don’t think he can, but fair enough.” He turns to Zayn, who’s still staring at him, face completely expressionless. “Zayn?”

Zayn cocks his head. “I just have one question,” he says, and there’s something knowing in his eyes. “When you say that you ‘really, really fucking hate someone’, do you actually mean that you’re half in love with them?”

Louis flips him off. “I am _not_ ,” he says, and opens the front door before Zayn can say anything else.

. . .

“Wait,” Harry says, his voice awed. “Is she…is she falling in love with the _bee_?”

“Yep,” Niall answers him, just as awed. “She is _definitely_ falling in love with the bee.”

“How is it,” Zayn says, slumped in the armchair, “that the both of you have never seen the fucking _Bee Movie_ before?”

Louis hadn’t thought it’d end up like this—he’d thought that maybe they’d just sit around Harry’s posh living room, chatting and drinking a few beers before heading home. But Niall had seen _Casper_ on Netflix and demanded that they watch it because it was ‘just so apt, Tommo’, and that somehow turned into them watching the second film, _then_ deciding to watch the fucking _Bee Movie_ , and when Louis had finally thought to look at the time he’d found that it was half past three in the morning.

“Maybe I did see it before,” Harry says, raising a hand. He doesn’t look away from the screen at where the female character and the bee are going on dates. “Who knows.”

“Fair,” Zayn says. “Niall?”

“I just don’t like bees,” Niall says. “I think they’re disgusting.”

“I bet the bees think you’re disgusting too,” Louis cuts in. He drains the last of his beer, sets it on the coffee table. Somehow—Louis doesn’t know how, but he strongly suspects Niall—they’d managed to blow through their entire twelve-pack of beer, and the entire room is littered with empty beer bottles. Louis sends a quiet thanks to whatever deity above that tomorrow is Sunday, because he has no idea how he’d even _face_ clients while sleep-deprived and a little hungover.

“I don’t mind,” Niall replies. He’s watching the film in rapt attention. “They can think I’m disgusting and I can think they’re disgusting.”

“A mutual disgust,” Harry adds solemnly.

Niall nods. “High-five, man,” he says, and Louis watches incredulously as Niall attempts to high-five Harry without tearing his eyes away from the telly, his hand phasing through Harry’s head.

“You’re both ridiculous,” Louis tells them, turning back to the telly. The girl’s boyfriend is steadily looking more and more crazed, and somehow, Louis finds it both very hilarious and very strange. “Probably just as ridiculous as the people who made this film.”

“That’s an accolade I can get behind,” Harry says.

“Among _other_ things you want to get behind,” Niall adds nonsensically.

“Are there other things you want to get behind?” Zayn asks.

Harry thinks for a moment. “Louis’ arse,” he eventually says, nodding sagely like it’s the wisest thing he’s ever said.

Which.

“Hey,” Louis says, doing his best to sound affronted. It’s hard though, when he’s tipsy—loose-limbed and happy; when it’s a cute boy who’s saying it. Because despite his ghostly status, Harry is still probably the most attractive person he’s seen in a while.

God, he needs to get laid.

“It’s a good arse,” Harry says. He’s not looking at Louis, but Louis can see the quirk of his mouth as he says it. “Nothing but compliments.”

“It better be,” Louis says haughtily, turning back to the film.

They watch quite a bit more, the film setting up the entire bee lawsuit, and just when Louis has decided that he’s seen enough, the front door opens, footsteps ringing out in the foyer.

“Okay, so why the _fuck_ ,” Liam’s voice rings loud in the flat, and Louis turns to see him standing with his jacket on, the keys to Harry’s flat in one hand and another twelve pack of beer in the other, “are we watching the _Bee Movie_?”

“Because it’s fucking art, is what it is,” Niall replies, holding his hand out for the beers. Louis snatches it from Liam before he can hand it over, taking one and passing it to Zayn.

“Niall, you don’t even like bees.”

“I like _this_ bee,” Niall says. “He’s dating up his league and I support it.”

It’s such an absurd thing to say that Louis wants to laugh. He turns to his right, finds Harry already looking at him, his green eyes lit up, the slight indent of a dimple already making an appearance. It’s that expression that makes Louis grin, his chest shaking from quiet laughter; watches the way Harry’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to burst into giggles.

And there’s just something to be said for the way genuine happiness sits on his face, how it transforms him. Like this, he’s radiant, almost blinding, that it makes Louis’ breath catch, makes his heart do a funny little turn in his chest.

“Louis?” Someone—Zayn—says, and it startles him, breaks him out of his reverie. He turns to Zayn, finds him staring back with eyes that are bit too knowing, like every single one of Louis’ thoughts had been broadcasted on his face. “Y’alright?”

“Me?” Louis asks. “`m just buzzing, mate.”

“Like a bee,” Harry adds unhelpfully. He’s still smiling in that genuine, unguarded way, and Louis can’t help but smile back even as he flips Harry off, even as he watches the rest of the film with his boys, a contented warmth settling in his stomach.

. . .

“Ten minutes,” Harry insists, crossing his arms.

“You’re overestimating yourself, Harold,” Louis shoots back, mimicking Harry’s pose. “I say fifteen at _least_.”

“Okay, it was fifteen that one time but all the other times it was ten,” Harry says. “Which means, on average, it’s ten.”

“No, it’s not.” And, okay, maybe Louis isn’t always checking the time when he’s conducting a showing, but he’s got a watch and a phone, as well as his fucking _intuition_. And his intuition, which has been honed from many years of working in the real estate industry selling houses and talking to clients, tells him that there’s absolutely no way his clients only stay for _ten minutes_ before running out the door.

And _yes_ , this is taking into consideration Harry’s stupid haunting techniques.

“It _is_ ,” Harry says, because he thinks he’s scarier than he actually is. Sometimes, Louis wishes his clients could also see Harry, just so they can see the stupid shit he pulls and the stupid faces he makes.

“Okay, look, I don’t know how time works in the ghostly universe,” Louis says, crossing his arms. “But I’m telling you, none of the people who’ve come to view the flat have stayed for _only ten minutes_. The minimum’s _fifteen_ , and it was that lady in the pink dress, remember?”

And what a client that was. Harry hadn’t even managed to do anything truly strange when she’d bowed out, said that she might’ve accidentally left her stovetop on. It had taken her less than two minutes to clear the flat, running down the building instead of taking the elevator, and leaving Louis free for the rest of the hour-long showing.

“Louis,” Harry says, “she’d only stayed for five.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You know what, I think you’ve got this idea that you’re far more terrifying than you actually are.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “I think I’m _very_ terrifying.”

“You’re as harmless as fucking Casper.”

“But he’s a child ghost, Louis.”

“My point stands.”

Harry lets out a sigh, clearly exasperated. “Look,” he says, straightening up. “I’m terrifying. I can be terrifying.”

“You sure about that?” Louis asks skeptically.

“Shut up, you,” Harry says, but his lips are twitching, like he’s holding himself back from laughing. “I’ll prove it. With your next client, it’ll be ten minutes until they’re running out the door.”

“I _really_ don’t think so,” Louis replies. “But by all means, go for it. Show me what it is you can really do.”

“I will,” Harry says. Confident.

And he really _shouldn’t_ have been, because even though Harry brings his A-game—does one ridiculously stupid thing after the other, performs dumber and dumber haunting tricks—Louis manages to get his clients to stay for twenty-five minutes.

Louis lords it over Harry’s head for the rest of the day.

. . .

“Okay,” Louis says, his smile frozen in place. It probably looks fake, but if the couple viewing the house notice, they don’t make any mention of it. “I’ll have the amended deed by next week.”

He barely waits for the door to close before he’s letting his smile drop, scrubbing a hand down his face. He takes a few deep breaths, but it does nothing to make him feel better. Not when the sadness seems to have wrapped around his heart like a vice, settling heavily over his shoulders.

It’s barely even noon and it’s already a shitty day—it’s the first birthday without her, and although Louis’ not a stranger to loss, he still doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. The wound is still fresh, tender, and it’s hard to resist the urge to just curl up in a ball and cry.

He would’ve called in sick if he could, but there’d been two clients who’d scheduled showings for the stupid properties he’s supposed to be selling, and no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to find another time to reschedule. So he’d decided to just suck it up, told himself he’d be able to handle it.

In hindsight, he probably should’ve known better

He arrives at Harry’s thirty minutes before the showing, collapses onto the couch and just closes his eyes. Harry, as always, materializes right next to him—Louis’ starting to learn what it feels like when Harry is around, starting to pinpoint the tell-tale symbols of his presence.

“Showing today?” Harry asks.

“Yeah,” Louis says.

“With who?”

“I don’t know.” Louis can’t be bothered to know. Not when he’s got grief settled in the bottom of his stomach, not when he’s got a lump in his throat and tears behind his eyelids.

Not when it’s the first time in nineteen years that Louis hasn’t greeted his sister.

“You don’t know?” Harry sounds surprised. “Thought you were supposed to be good at your job.”

And it’s mild, compared to the jabs they exchange on a near daily basis, but Louis is just not having it right now. “Look,” he says. “I don’t fucking _care_ what you think of me, I really don’t.”

If it comes out a little angrier than he’d intended, well.

Harry looks startled by the tone of his voice. “I was just—”

“If you have nothing important to tell me, then please just _go the fuck away_.” His sadness gives way to red-hot anger, pulsing through him. For some reason, he can’t get himself to stop speaking, the words spilling from his mouth tainted with misplaced grief and anger. “I swear, I can’t _wait_ for the day you decide to disappear from this world.”

It’s probably not the worst thing he could’ve say to Harry, but combined with the sheer vitriol in his voice, it’s a pretty close thing. Louis’ sad, and mad, and a little bit angry at himself, and it’s the _sixteenth of August_ and he can’t stop thinking about _her_ , about the way she looked in her coffin, lips white and eyes perpetually closed.

But then Harry is looking at him, the hurt evident in his eyes. “Alright then,” he says, and his voice is so _empty_ that it washes over Louis like ice-cold water, dousing the anger and replacing it with guilt. Immediately, he realizes he’s said something wrong, and he opens his mouth to apologize, but then Harry is—

Harry’s gone.

. . .

It’s a good showing. The girls fall in love with the flat and wander around to their hearts’ content, barely even speaking to Louis unless they’ve got a question. There’s no flickering lights, no Britney Spears playing in the background. The furniture stays in place and the table magazines stay unopened and Harry is nowhere to be found, not even hovering in Louis’ peripheral vision like he’s wont to do.

It makes Louis feel like shit.

. . .

When the door shuts behind the two girls, Louis takes a deep breath. Holds it in his lungs. Says, “Harry?” as he exhales, and feels a great sense of relief when Harry materializes on the couch like he’s been there all along.

“Yeah?” He replies.

He’s guarded, eyes careful on Louis. His expression is stoic, almost vacant, and it’s such a far cry from the normally open boy Louis deals with regularly that Louis feels guilt wash over him anew.

“I—nothing,” he says quickly. “You weren’t around to scare the clients away. Just wondered if you’ve finally given up on our bet.”

It’s a half-arsed attempt at their normal banter, a bait that Harry doesn’t take. Doesn’t even say anything to either—just stares at Louis so intently that it makes Louis feel like he’s been opened up, dissected for everyone to see.

When Harry finally speaks though, his voice is low, quiet. “What’s wrong?”

Louis shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Louis.”

“It’s really nothing.”

“Louis.”

 _God_ , how many times must Louis say it? “I’m _fine_ , Harry,” he says, even as he feels it again—grief, vice-like around his heart, heavy on his shoulders. “Really, it’s nothing, I—”

“Louis.” This time, when Harry interrupts him, there’s concern laced in his tone. “You can talk to me, yeah? Whatever it is, I’ll—”

“It’s my sister’s birthday today.” The words ring out loudly in the large London flat, bouncing off the walls. “Fizzy. She would’ve been nineteen.”

“Would’ve?”

“She died last March.”

Louis’ heard somewhere that saying these things out loud is cathartic, that hearing it out loud is one step closer to healing. But the loss of Fizzy is still fresh, the wound still raw, and it’s her _birthday_ today and Louis just. Can’t function properly with that thought in mind.

He doesn’t notice Harry moving, doesn’t notice him appearing right beside him until he’s speaking. “I’m sorry,” he says, and then suddenly there’s something solid pressed against his back, rubbing large circles. “God, Lou, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” Louis tells him. There’s a wetness under his eyes— _tears_ , he realizes distantly. Tears travelling down his cheeks, a symbol of what he’s lost. “It’s…it was an accident.” He feels his mouth twist into a semblance of a smile. “I just miss her a lot. Wonder if she misses me too.”

He thinks of Fizzy, thinks of the excited quality to her voice whenever Louis would phone her at midnight on the dot on her birthday. Thinks of her smile, her laugh; the way she’d demur when Louis would hand her her present, only to tear off the wrapping paper with the enthusiasm of a five year old. She’d been taken from them much too young, much too soon.

“She does.” It takes him a moment to realize that Harry is speaking to him. “Wherever she is, I’m sure she misses you as much as you miss her.”

Harry’s green eyes are sad and his presence beside Louis is comforting despite his incorporeality, and Louis lets himself cry, grief travelling down his face like a plea, a bargain. Words bubbling from his mouth; _please I hope she’s okay I hope she’s doing alright I hope that she’s resting now and I miss her quite terribly, I miss her I miss her I miss her—_

Harry doesn’t leave his side even for a moment, just sits beside him and lets him cry, until the tears run out and his heart feels a little lighter.

. . .

And then summer melts into fall, leaves changing colour, and before Louis knows it, he realizes he’s steadily been spending more and more of his free time with Harry, realizes that he’s been watching Harry much more, enough to memorize the green of his eyes, the curve of his lips. Enough to be able to tell what Harry’s thinking, what Harry’s planning; enough to make sense of the expressions on his face, to be able to predict what kind of things he’s going to say. He’s become an open book, Harry, one that Louis has no trouble reading; one that, with time, Louis might end up memorizing cover to cover.

But despite this all, Louis still isn’t one step closer to selling the flat.

“Would it _kill_ you to let me have one good showing?” Louis complains to Harry, looking out through the bay windows, watching the couple run away from the building as fast as they can. Louis thinks it’s kind of an overreaction, but, what does he know. He’s pretty sure that if he also couldn’t see Harry, he’d also find the whole thing much more terrifying than it is.

As it is, it’s just very annoying and (very) mildly amusing.

Harry, the absolute menace, just shrugs. “I’m dead,” he tells Louis. “Nothing can kill me.”

“ _I_ can kill you,” Louis mutters, loud enough for Harry to hear.

“You can _try_ ,” Harry replies, clearly amused. “Tell me again, just _how_ many times did you try to get me exorcised from this flat?”

Harry is one hundred percent an arsehole. “Three wasn’t even _that_ much,” Louis replies haughtily. “I’m sure there are more than three ways to exorcise a ghost.”

“Probably,” Harry agrees, “but you can’t try anymore because we have an agreement. A _pinky swear,_ if you will.”

Louis doesn’t even need to look at him to know that he’s grinning, cocksure expression settling on his face. He picks up a table magazine that Harry had hurled during the showing and throws it over his shoulder, at Harry’s general direction. “Stop giving me shit about our pinky swear.”

The magazine either misses Harry, or phases through him, which. Louis can never seem to win, apparently.

“I’m not,” Harry replies. “I like it. Makes me feel like we’re connected.”

“The only connection I want with you is my foot on your arse.”

“Kinky,” Harry says, and Louis just. Has to throw another magazine at him.

It still phases through, but it makes him feel marginally better.

. . .

“No, Louis,” Liam says, holding his beer bottle away from him. “It’s mine.”

“Sharing is caring, Payno,” Louis says, not letting up from where he’s practically sprawled out on top of Liam on the couch, reaching for the beer. “Are you saying you don’t care about me?”

They’re in the flat with the rest of the lads, simply because Louis had gotten lazy to leave after his last showing. He’d had an _exhausting_ day, and Harry’s couch is really just far too comfortable to just up and leave from, so instead of meeting the lads at the pub, Louis called them all up, sent them all here. After all, whatever they can do at the pub they can do here, sprawled in the living room.

Except maybe drink. Louis’ trying to remedy that, though.

“I do care about you, but you can get your own,” Liam says, pushing Louis’ face away. “I literally brought _twelve beers_ for all four of us to drink.”

“But you put them too far away,” Louis whines.

“Tommo, they’re on the coffee table.”

“I can’t reach them.”

Okay, maybe attempting to steal Liam’s beer is two parts laziness, one part trying to piss Liam off. Louis can’t help it though. Liam’s just so fun to fuck with.

“You both need to shut up,” Niall says seriously. He’s sat on the floor right below them, his eyes trained on the telly. “This is a crucial part in the film, and you’re distracting Harry.”

They’re watching the fucking _Emoji Movie_. And okay, Louis hasn’t seen the film, but he doubts there’s a very crucial part in it.

Louis doesn’t need to look to know that Harry’s staring at him, staring at the way he’s sprawled out on top of Liam. It’s a bit strange, because although Harry doesn’t have a physical presence the way the way humans do, Louis’ spent quite a bit of time that he’s become quite adept at knowing when Harry’s around. At knowing how far or how close Harry is from him. At knowing when he’s staring at Louis the way he sometimes tends to do, brow furrowed and his lips slightly parted.

And if that makes him preen a little, makes him lift his chin up a little, well. It’s an expected reaction to being stared at by a cute boy.

“Tell Liam to give me his beer, then,” Louis says, making grabby hands for the beer.

“Tell Louis to get his own,” Liam replies, pushing Louis’ face away.

Louis stretches up even further, his fingers just grazing the cold glass of the bottle. He thinks he could reach it, if he reached up some more—maybe even add a bit of nipple twisting, to catch Liam off-guard.

But then—

“Louis.” It’s not Niall who speaks this time, but Harry, and his voice is deeper, more authoritative than Louis’ ever heard it before. It distracts Louis, makes him stop struggling on top of Liam.

Liam uses that momentary distraction to wriggle out from under Louis, rolling onto his feet and scrambling to where Zayn is sat. Louis takes a deep breath, lets it out; pushes himself onto his knees. He finds himself looking at Harry, who is staring at him the exact way he’d predicted, furrow in his brow and his green eyes disorienting.

A strange feeling comes over Louis. “Yeah?”

The corner of Harry’s mouth quirks up. “Please,” he says.

There’s an edge in his eyes—a hint of steel, of danger, of authority. It makes Louis’ pulse quicken, in his throat, makes his mouth feel dry. He wets his lips, swallows; doesn’t miss the way Harry’s eyes track the movement.

And this is—he doesn’t know what’s happening, doesn’t know what _this_ is, but. Somehow, he finds that he doesn’t want it to stop.

“Pass me a beer, please?” He asks Niall. Harry doesn’t stop watching him until Niall’s passed him a beer and Louis’ popped it open, but even then, Louis knows he hasn’t been forgotten; once in a while, Harry’s eyes will slide to Louis’ direction, as if checking that Louis’ still behaving himself.

Louis ignores Zayn’s raised eyebrow the whole time.

. . .

One Wednesday, Louis walks in the flat to find Harry lying on the couch.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

One of Harry’s eyes pop open. “Napping,” he says.

“Why?”

“I have a headache.”

Louis frowns down at him. “Can ghosts even have headaches?”

“Well _this_ one does, so.” Harry’s clearly not feeling well—Louis’ barely been in the flat for five minutes and already Harry’s tone has gotten that semi-annoyed quality to it, the same one he gets when he wants Louis to stop throwing things at him.

“Sarcasm isn’t a good look on you, Harold,” Louis replies haughtily. He claps loudly, and it startles Harry, makes him turn a glare towards Louis. “Alright, then. You can stay on the couch, I’m just going to go and wait for the client to arrive.”

“You scheduled a showing today?” Harry whines.

“Well, I didn’t know you were going to have a headache, did I?”

“Ugh.” Harry swings his legs off the couch, shaking his head. “If you manage to sell this flat just because I’m not feeling well, I’m going to be very pissed at you.”

“You really put too much stock in your haunting skills,” Louis says, just as the buzzer rings, signaling the arrival of the client. “I told you, you’re really not that good.”

Harry, due to his headache, can’t do much; he ends up moving things around for about five minutes until he decides he doesn’t want to anymore, retreating to the couch to lie back down again. Louis spends the rest of the hour alone with the client, who decides at the end of it that she doesn’t want it. To quote her, “the vibes are off in this place.”

(And if that’s because Louis spent the better part of the hour telling her that some people have reported moving furniture or creepy music playing from the walls, well. That’s neither here nor there.)

. . .

“Huh,” Louis says, frowning. “We’re on _Reddit_.”

“What?” Harry asks, but appears right behind Louis to peek over his shoulder. It’s a testament to how much time he’s spent with Harry that Louis doesn’t even startle, just holds his phone out so Harry can read.

“ _People on Reddit_ ,” Harry drawls out, incredibly slowly. “ _What was your most memorable experience while searching for a place to live?_ ”

“Good,” Louis replies, making his voice just as slow as Harry’s. “Very good. Only took thirty years off my life, that.”

Harry shrugs easily. “No big deal.”

“Now read the comment below that. _Quietly_ ,” Louis adds, when Harry opens his mouth. “I don’t need to lose another thirty years.”

“I think you’d look good after sixty years,” Harry muses. “You’d be a gorgeous silver fox with an arse that won’t quit.”

“Hopefully with millions in my bank account so I don’t have to spend any more of my time with ghosts,” Louis quips. “Now seriously, look.”

“ _There’s a gorgeous flat in Central London,_ ” Harry reads out loud, because he makes it his life mission to ignore whatever it is Louis tells him to do. “ _Won’t tell you which one, but it’s not hard to find. They renovated it from a clocktower or something. Anyway, when I went to the showing with my girlfriend, strange things happened. Stereo randomly playing Britney Spears, table magazines being tossed against the wall, furniture being moved. The scary/hilarious part? The agent who took us there didn’t even look alarmed, just seemed to grow more and more annoyed as things happened. We have this working theory that he’s friends with the ghost.”_

That, for some reason, makes Harry laugh. “Well,” he says, dimples making an appearance “they’re not wrong there.”

“They’re a hundred percent wrong there,” Louis shoots back. “We’re not friends.”

“We’re kinda friends.”

“We’re kinda _not_.”

Harry doesn’t stop grinning. “I consider you my friend, Lou.”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “And I consider you a massive pain in the arse.”

“Really?” Harry says, mimicking his movement. “You’re saying you like it to hurt, then?”

And that’s.

“You know what,” Louis says darkly, because this boy is actually fucking _ridiculous,_ “I’m getting real tired of you. One more and I’m going to have you removed.”

Harry laughs again. “No, you won’t.”

He says it so confidently that Louis just _has_ to roll his eyes, has to turn away and pretend to ignore him for a bit. And that makes Harry wheedle and whine for Louis to pay attention to him, doing things such as saying his name eight hundred times and yelling in an attempt to turn Louis deaf. Louis only gives in when Harry starts singing _Slave 4 U_ at the top of his lungs, because no matter what Harry says, that song is _not_ meant to belted out like that.

. . .

“I’m starting to think you can’t actually play the piano at all,” Harry tells him one day, after a showing. They’re sat by the piano again—Harry because he’d had another melody stuck in his head, and Louis because he’s got an hour to kill before his next client comes.

Louis glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it. “And _I’m_ starting to think that you’re just a shitty teacher.” He busts out an arpeggio just to prove his point.

Harry raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s not true,” he says. “I was a piano teacher when I was alive.”

“Really?”

“No, I don’t remember,” Harry dismisses, “but it’s plausible. Like Schrödinger’s job, maybe.”

An idiot, Harry is. An actual, fucking _idiot_. “How is it,” Louis says, appalled, “that you don’t remember anything about your past, but you remember the concept of _Schrödinger’s Cat_?”

Harry shrugs. “I’m special,” he says, pretending to flip his hair. It’s such an absurd and ridiculous action that it makes Louis snort. “Play me something."

“What?”

“You said you’ve been watching piano tutorials since you were fourteen, right? So you must know something.”

“I mean,” Louis thinks for a moment. “Bits and pieces.”

“So, play it for me.” Harry gestures to the piano in front of them. “I’m your piano teacher, Louis, it’s up to me to judge you based on your skill.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “But I mostly know piano covers of songs,” he complains. “It’s not going to be any good without anyone singing.”

“Then sing.”

“I’m a terrible singer.”

“I highly doubt that.”

There’s a certain way Harry’s looking at him—eyes clear, a small smile playing on his lips. “Please,” he says, and the thing is. The thing is, Louis is sure that Harry is the absolute bane of existence, was sent here in order to make his life much harder, but when he looks at Louis like _this_ , Louis finds that he’s powerless to resist.

“You’ll most probably regret this,” Louis warns, even as he settles his hands on the keys, fingers hovering above the notes. There’s a tune already running through his head, a the first song he’d painstakingly learned on the piano when he was sixteen, and it’s easy, muscle memory almost, for his fingers to slot into the correct position, to press down on the right notes.

“ _If I don’t say this now,_ ” Louis sings, “ _I will surely break_.”

It’s quiet—his voice and the tinkering of the piano—and it’s gentle, delicate. It’s easy to get lost in the music, to focus on chord progression after chord progression, not focusing too much on the quality of his voice, the tone and whether or not it wavers. Louis doesn’t know if Harry’s enjoying it; is too busy trying not to press on the wrong notes to look, but he knows that Harry’s watching, can feel green eyes boring into the side of his face.

He doesn’t finish the song—he trickles off after the first chorus, pulls his hands away from the piano and rests them on his lap. The silence rings out, clear like a bell.

There are moments, Louis thinks, that often go overlooked—a single, pocket bubble where time just doesn’t apply. That’s why seconds sometimes feel like hours, why moments sometimes stretch out into days. This, feels like one of those moments, each breath coming slow and unhurried, each second inching along.

“That was wonderful.” Harry’s voice is gentle, warm. When Louis turns to look at him, his eyes are bright, as if with unshed tears. “That was really…good.”

His expression is touched, the sincerity in his voice almost child-like. It makes something in Louis’ chest ache tenderly.

“Yeah, well,” Louis says, ignores the sudden warmth on his face. “Could be better.” He turns away, fiddles with the _C_. “My rendition of _Happy Birthday_ is sick, though.”

And just like that, the bubble pops. “Yeah?” Harry says, his voice affecting its normal quality. “You should play that for me as well. It might be my birthday today.”

“Well, if the maybe-birthday boy says so.” And Louis bangs out the first chord loudly, laughing at the way Harry startles at the sound. “I’ll do it with pleasure.

. . .

It ends up being absolutely horrible. Somewhere along the way, the words get changed—from _Happy Birthday to you_ to _Happy Bird-day_ _to you_ to _Harry Bird-day to Lou_ to just _Harry’s Bird goes to Lou_ , and Harry laughs so hard while singing it that Louis’ a bit scared the neighbours will hear him.

It’s still a lot of fun, though.

. . .

“Any plans for Friday?” Zayn asks, one Wednesday. The four of them are sat in their regular pub, grabbing a few drinks after work. “Was thinking we could go watch a film or summat. There’s this new one that looks good.”

“Ooh,” Liam replies, “is it the new Batman film? ‘ve been dying to see that.”

“Yeah,” Zayn replies, smiling. “It looks sick.”

“Count me in.”

“Cool,” Zayn says. “Niall?”

Niall thinks for a moment. “Nothing I can’t get out of,” he says. “So I’m in too.”

“Ace. Louis?”

Louis frowns down at his pint. “In the cinema?”

“No,” Zayn says, the obvious _duh_ in his tone. “In the fucking park.”

Louis laughs. “Fuck you,” he says, jostling Zayn a little. “It’s just that I‘d been thinking of maybe hanging out with Harry that day after work.”

At the mention of Harry’s name, Zayn raises an eyebrow. Niall and Liam exchange a quick glance between them, and then Liam is setting his pint down and leaning forward, lacing his fingers in front of his face like Louis is a particularly interesting specimen he intends to study.

“You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Harry,” he begins.

Louis blinks at him. “I mean,” he says slowly, “I have to _sell_ the flat he’s haunting.”

“No, I know that,” Liam dismisses, “but it’s not that. I mean, it’s not _just_ that.”

Louis looks at him, puzzled. “What are you on about, mate?”

Liam and Niall exchange another look, almost as if they’re having a silent conversation between them. Beside him, Zayn is stoic, staring straight at them, almost as if he’s listening intently to whatever it is they’re saying.

What the fuck. “Okay,” Louis says, when the silence starts moving into awkward territory. “What the fuck are you not telling me?”

It’s Niall who speaks up. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Tommo,” he says. “But we have _eyes_.”

Louis is confused. How the fuck is he meant to take that statement any which way? “…And other people don’t?”

“ _No_ , I meant—” Niall blows out a breath, clearly unsure how to broach this topic. “What we’re trying to say is just that. We can see him too, Louis. We know what he looks like.”

“And so?”

“Louis,” Liam cuts in, clearly tired of Niall talking in circles. “Do you think Harry is attractive?”

Louis blinks at him. “Yes,” he hedges slowly. “I mean like. He’s definitely attractive. Stupidly so. But he’s also the bane of my existence.”

Liam raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen someone willingly spend so much time with the bane of their existence.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Look, just spit it out, Liam.”

“It’s nothing,” Liam replies quickly. “It’s just that. We love you, and we know you, and we know how you get when you have a crush on someone.”

Honestly, _what_ did Liam eat today? “What do you mean ‘crush’?” Louis demands. “Do you guys _think_ I have a crush on Harry?”

“…Do you not?” Niall asks.

“No!” Louis says, setting his pint down with a _thunk_. “He’s a fucking ghost and I don’t have a crush on him, and—Zayn, back me up here.”

That makes Zayn raise an eyebrow. “Okay,” he says easily. Disbelievingly. “Sure.”

“Not you too,” Louis complains. He elbows Zayn on the side, takes pleasure in the way Zayn winces, just a little. “Look, I’m telling you, I don’t have a crush on Harry. Like, he’s stupid attractive, but he’s also stupid annoying. Yesterday he’d tried to write a song about a moth that had gotten stuck on the bay window.”

And what a song that was. It was entirely acapella, incredibly dumb, and consisted of the line _moth-man you flew, just like my tattoo_ , which Harry had insisted was _art_. He’d even tried to get to Louis to sing along to the chorus with him—an impossible feat, considering that one, Louis didn’t know the tune _or_ the words, and two, Louis just didn’t _want_ to.

“Okay, okay,” Liam says placatingly. He still looks a bit disbelieving, but he’s obviously trying to hide it, which. Louis can appreciate effort. “I believe you. If you say you don’t have a crush on Harry, then you don’t.”

“Thank you, Payno,” Louis says primly.

“It’s just,” and now Zayn is looking him dead in the eye, expression serious. “We like Harry too. Just, keep in mind that he’s dead, yeah?”

Louis scoffs. “Like I could forget,” he says. “He’s literally _transparent_."

“I know, but I’m just telling you. Don’t—” and Zayn’s mouth quirks up the tiniest bit, almost as if he finds what he’s about to say a tad bit humorous, “—don’t go and fall for a ghost, Louis. If anything happens between you two, there’s no way it’s going to end well.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Zayn,” he says. “There’s no way I’m going to fall for Harry.”

. . .

“You know,” Louis says mildly, “I think it’s borderline unhealthy how much you listen to that album.”

Harry winks at him from where he’s badly gyrating his hips to _Toxic_. Louis thinks he’s just intentionally dancing badly, to piss Louis off in some weird way. “It’s the only album I have,” he says. “And it’s pretty good—it says it’s _Britney Spears’ Greatest Hits_.”

“It is pretty good,” Louis allows, “but I’m thinking you should listen to something else.”

“Like what?”

“I’m glad you asked, young Harold,” Louis says, pulling out his phone. “There’s this little thing called _Spotify_ and it’s got all the music you can imagine.”

Harry stops dancing. “Does it have _more_ Britney Spears?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Well, yes,” he allows, “but, look—” he taps at the screen, and immediately the stereo chimes, connects to Louis’ phone. It had taken him a few weeks to realize that Harry’s stereo _also_ had Bluetooth connection, and another few days to learn how to connect to it. “Now we can listen to other things that’s _not_ Britney Spears.”

Not that Louis hates Britney Spears. She’s a legend, after all. But there’s only so many replays of _Toxic_ he can take before he wants to pull his hair off.

“Alright,” Harry says, and he sits down on the floor, crosses his legs. “Play me a song you like.”

He presses a song on his phone, and immediately, Ed Sheeran’s voice fills the room.

Harry looks like Louis has just performed actual magic in front of him. “That’s amazing,” he says. He falls quiet, and Louis watches his face change as the song progresses, listening to Ed’s poetic lyrics and the quiet strumming of his guitar. When he finishes, there’s a smile on his face, bright and sincere. “That’s a good song.”

Louis shrugs, and lets his phone play out the next song.

They sit like that for a bit, Harry listening to whatever songs come on, Louis skipping songs he doesn’t know, doesn’t like, or just doesn’t want to hear and watching Harry react to the lyrics, to the melodies and the harmonies. He’s an open book, Harry is—his heart on his sleeve, bare for everyone to see, and he doesn’t hold back his reactions, lets every single emotion, every single thought play out on the lines of his face. He’s beautiful, the way art is beautiful—raw and expressive, emotions pouring out of every surface, and Louis finds that he can’t get himself to stop watching.

The song changes, chords to a new Taylor Swift song that Louis’ heard once or twice on the radio. It’s an alright song, but Louis doesn’t quite feel up to listening to it, so he reaches over to skip it. But then suddenly there’s a hand on his, and Harry appears to have moved from the floor and onto the seat next to him, and Louis can’t focus on that because—

Because Harry is _touching_ him. Like, actually, genuinely, touching him, his hand solid and large and warm, his fingers tangling with Louis’.

“I like it,” Harry says. He seems to be unaware of what just happened, of what he’s just done, his head bobbing in time to the music. Louis looks down, at where Harry’s skin—is it skin?—is touching his, feels as if all the nerve endings in his hand has been set on fire.

“Okay,” he says.

Harry must hear something in his voice because he’s turning back to Louis, his face questioning. The expression falls away almost immediately when he catches sight of their tangled fingers, his eyes widening imperceptibly.

Harry swallows, his throat working. He doesn’t meet Louis’ eye, his gaze frozen on the way they’re touching, and Louis resists the urge to call out, to say his name just so he’d raise his head. He wants to know what Harry’s thinking, what’s going on in his head; wants to see the thoughts running through his mind, follow them to their conclusion.

Harry is just _touching_ him. Just holding his hand. Louis has no idea how to react, no idea how Harry’s going to react.

The proper, logical thing that’s supposed to happen is for one of them pull away. Louis knows this, knows that Harry knows this. But Harry’s hand is large and a little warm, and for the first time, it’s _tangible_ for long enough that Louis can feel that he’s got callouses on his fingertips and a palm that’s just on the side of rough.

And then Harry’s grip on his hand tightens, and Harry looks him in the eye, his green eyes hardening with a steely resolve.

“Dance with me,” he says.

Louis blinks at him. “What?”

“Dance with me,” Harry repeats, and somehow, Louis is being pulled up from off the couch, his hand still tight in Harry’s grip. Harry pulls him close, and his other hand—just as large, just as warm, and just as _tangible_ —comes to rest on his lower back, above his shirt.

“What are you doing?” Louis asks. He ignores the way his heartbeat speeds up, the way he starts to feel as if he’s been set on fire. Harry’s touch on his back is gentle, almost delicate, but Louis still knows where it is, is acutely aware of its warmth and its breadth and the way it seeps through the material of his shirt.

It’s ridiculous, how he always has a visceral reaction whenever Harry touches him. How he always feels like he’s about to fall, tumble headfirst into _something_ , his heart in his throat.

Harry hums. “Dancing,” he says, unaware of Louis’ internal turmoil. Somehow, he manages to sway them both from side to side, in time to the song. “With you.”

This must be taking him a lot of effort. Louis knows that for Harry, being tangible for short periods of time expends quite a bit of his energy, but if it’s tiring him out he doesn’t let it show, his expression fixed in that private, genuine smile that Louis is starting to see more often.

“You didn’t even ask me if I wanted to dance.”

“Louis, do you want to dance?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well,” Harry says, “it’s too late to back out now.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Hilarious,” he deadpans, even as he feels the corners of his mouth twitch, reacting to how ridiculous Harry is. Seems like, no matter how hard he tries to fight it, Harry always manages to make him smile one way or another. “You’re absolutely hilarious.” He pauses. “But why are we dancing?”

“Just felt like it,” Harry says, and for a moment, his grip on Louis’ hand tightens. “It sounds like a good song to dance to and you look like you’d be a good dancer.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Well.” There’s a twinkle in Harry’s eye, one that tells Louis he’s about to say something witty. “Just the way you shake your bum when you’re walking.”

Harry is _not_ funny. And _really_ , someone should tell him before he hurts himself making jokes. “Are you telling me,” Louis starts, arching a brow, “that you look at my bum on the regular?”

Harry’s smile turns a touch cheeky. “Can’t help it,” he says, absolutely shameless. “I told you, it’s a good bum. Best one I’ve seen.”

“Seen a lot of bums in your undead lifetime, then?”

“Don’t have to,” Harry replies. “I think knowing what constitutes a good bum is just something you never forget.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “This is harassment,” he complains mildly, and he does his best to look annoyed, but he’s pretty sure he fails, judging by the way Harry’s expression doesn’t change in the slightest.

“Is it harassment when the other party isn’t exactly tangible?”

Louis squeezes Harry’s hand. “Well, you’re tangible now,” he says.

“That I am,” Harry answers. “Anything to be able to dance with you.”

His voice is light, airy, and there’s _something_ in the expression of his face, in the gentle, private smile he shoots Louis, in the clear affection in his eyes. It makes something warm pool in Louis’ stomach, visceral and bright, makes his breath hitch a little. Makes him want to step closer to Harry until there’s no space between them, makes him wonder what it would be like if Harry wasn’t a dead boy, if he was real and alive and tangible all the way through.

It’s just so _unfair_ that the most beautiful boy Louis’ seen in a while is simultaneously: one, the most annoying; and two, dead. Louis doesn’t know what he’d done in a past life to get cockblocked by death, but he figures it wasn’t anything good.

…Not that Louis would go for Harry. Harry’s _dead_. But he’s just so goddamn gorgeous and Louis hasn’t gotten laid in a while that he can’t help entertain the thought, can’t help but wonder what it’d be like between the two of them. Biblically.

As if he can read his thoughts, Harry’s eyes flick down to Louis’ lips, and his eyes darken, just a little bit. There’s a _yearning_ unfolding on his face, slow and hungry, and the hand resting on Louis’ back inches down, slowly. Louis bites his lip, holds his breath—

Startles, when the feeling of Harry’s hands on him disappears, fading into air. In the blink of an eye, Harry’s expression changes; Louis manages to catch disappointment flitting through his features, followed by something almost _sad_. But Louis blinks again and it’s gone, replaced by the cheeky expression he normally wears.

“That was fun,” Harry says, and Louis swallows, nods. Tries to calm his frantic heart down as he averts his eyes, goes to change the song.

. . .

It’s nothing.

It’s supposed to be nothing.

And it _is_ nothing.

(Except for the fact that now Louis can’t stop staring at Harry’s hands, can’t stop wondering how they would feel like against his skin. Except for the fact that Harry looks at him more and smiles at him more and touches him more—just simple things, like a hand on his shoulder or fingers down his arm or a hand brushing his knee. And Harry isn’t tangible most days, which means Louis genuinely doesn’t feel _anything_ , but just seeing them against his own skin always manages to send his heart into overdrive.)

. . .

The two university boys are doing a good job of ignoring Harry’s usual haunting tactics, and Louis from his peripheral vision, he can see Harry grow more and more frustrated. Louis mentally prepares himself for the explaining away he’s going to do—when the clients are stubborn and oblivious, Harry has a tendency to work harder, to do crazier and crazier things that often leaves Louis scrambling. Once, he’d scared off a client by somehow managing to play very specific parts of Britney’s songs to relate to what she’d said. Louis can’t quite forget the face she’d made when she’d told Louis that she’s been living alone since her husband died, and the stereo had blasted out, _my loneliness is killing me_.

Louis has asked Harry countless times how he’d done it, but Harry has always refused to tell him.

Now, though. The university boys are either drunk, high, or _both_ , and are somehow ignoring the (supposedly) floating book in front of their face. Louis is _so_ sure that Harry is going to whip out something creative and annoying to send them away.

But strangely enough, he doesn’t.

The boys stay for a solid half-hour, discussing location and facilities and its price point, and when they finish, they shake Louis’ hand, tells him they’ll be in touch, and go their merry way.

Harry, when Louis turns to face him, looks frustrated—the set of his shoulders is tense and his jaw is clenched, and he’s looking down at his hands, opening and closing them like he’s never seen them before.

“Hey,” Louis calls, and Harry’s head whips up. “That was a shit haunting.”

Harry’s shoulders slump forward. “Yeah, well,” he says. “I’m having a shit day.”

Louis had said it in jest, had meant for it to be a bit of banter, but realizes now that he shouldn’t have. Something genuinely seems to be bothering Harry—his hands are at fists in his sides, knuckles so white they’re transparent.

Actually, now that Louis takes a good look at him, he looks a lot more transparent than he usually does. A lot closer to incorporeality than real, skin slightly paler than normal.

He closes the distance between them, stops right in front of Harry. “Hey,” he says, keeping his voice soft. Gentle. “It happens. Everyone has shit days.”

Or, well. He thinks so. He’s not sure how ghosts can have shit days, but with the way Harry looks now, he supposes it must be true.

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. “I guess,” he says. Not as forthcoming as he usually is.

At this vantage point, Louis can see the furrow of his brow and the tilt of his lips, can see that whatever _this_ is, it’s affecting him quite deeply. And every cell inside Louis seems to vibrate with the want to touch him, to place a comforting hand on his shoulder or wrap his arms around him.

And it sucks, because he’s a firm believer that everything can be solved with a cuddle, but he just can’t _touch_ Harry.

So Louis does the next best thing.

He hasn’t got any more showings, but he does have a closing contract signing on one of the other properties he’s selling. It’s standard, nothing special, and something that Louis doesn’t have a problem pawning off to Nick.

He pulls out his phone and texts James, tells him that he needs to go home due to an unforeseen emergency, but that Nick will be closing on his behalf. Texts Nick, asks him if he could close on his behalf, and bring the signed paperwork to his flat at around six.

Both replies come quickly: a thumbs up emoji from James, and a text from Nick saying that he can close for Louis, but he has to drop by the hospital for a bit after work, which means he’ll get the paperwork at around nine.

Louis texts him, _that’s fine_. Receives a _you owe me, Tomlinson_ back.

“Are you leaving?” Harry asks. He’s been watching Louis on his phone, and his eyes are tired, sad. Louis doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but everything about his body language right now tells Louis he’s made the right decision in staying.

“Nah,” Louis says. “Called off work. You look like you could use the company.”

It’s miniscule, but Harry’s demeanour changes, the set of his shoulders less heavy, the furrow of his brow less pronounced. “You don’t have to,” Harry begins.

“I _want_ to,” Louis replies. Finds that he means it. “Do you want me to call the lads? Tell them to drop by later?”

Harry shakes his head. “Just you,” he says, voice open and vulnerable. “Just want it to be you and I for a bit.”

There’s something hidden in that sentence, something unspoken. Louis doesn’t know what it is, but he hears it, knows that whatever it is makes Harry’s words all the more sincere.

Louis sits on the couch like he usually does, and Harry sits right beside him like he usually does. They don’t say anything as they sit, content to bask in the silence and each other’s presence.

Harry seems to be working through something, mind clearly far away from here. However, he doesn’t seem to forget Louis—Louis watches quietly as Harry ghosts his hand down his arm, brushes his fingers against Louis. Sets his hand on Louis’ knee, his fingers long enough to cover Louis’ kneecap entirely.

Harry isn’t tangible, not today, but it still makes Louis’ pulse quicken. He doesn’t shift away.

They stay like that until Louis has to leave.

. . .

“Is it possible for you to close your eyes?” Louis asks Harry, one day.

Harry blinks at him, clearly confused. “What?”

“Like without peeking,” Louis clarifies. “If I ask you to close your eyes, can you do it without knowing what’s happening around you?”

“Yes…?” Harry says, his tone rising at the end. “Louis, I’m a ghost, I’m not omniscient.”

“Okay, just checking,” Louis says, nodding. A pause. “So. I’m going to need you to close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes,” Louis repeats. “And no peeking.”

“Why?” Harry asks, because he _always_ has to get a word in edgewise. But he does so anyway, his giant hands even coming up to cover half his face.

“Reasons.” Louis waves a hand in front of his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three?”

“Wrong answer. But good,” Louis says, rubbing his hands together. A thought occurs to him. “If you opened your eyes right now, would you be able to see through your hands?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “Do you want me to try?”

“No,” Louis says immediately. He thinks for a moment. “Or, well, maybe later. For now just keep them shut.”

“Okay.”

“And no peeking!” Louis tacks on. “Don’t you dare try it, Harry.”

“I won’t!” He’s still got his hands obediently over his eyes, but beneath it, Louis can see him starting to smile, his left dimple making an appearance. “What are you doing, Louis?”

“You’ll see!” Louis waves his hand in front of Harry’s face again, just to make sure, before nodding decisively to himself. He pulls out his phone from his pocket, sends a message to his group chat—nothing but a single thumbs-up emoji.

Everything happens quickly after that. Niall, Liam and Zayn sneak into the flat, each with the thing Louis asked them to bring. They manage to stay undetected by Harry for about five minutes, at least until Niall starts laughing at something Liam does.

“Is that Niall?” Harry asks, far too delightedly. “Is everyone else here as well?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Keep your eyes closed, Harry ,” he says, and signals for Niall to cut it out.

In total, it takes them about fifteen minutes to set everything up. Louis takes one last look around, double checking that everything is in the right spot, before clapping his hands loudly. “Alright,” he says. “Open your eyes now, Harry.”

“Finally,” Harry says, pulling his hands away from his face. “What are you—”

And see, Louis isn’t a poet. Never claimed to be one, never had the affinity for writing. Never could find the words; never had any need for them, not in a world where everything could be captured in the click of a shutter, the lens of a camera.

But Harry isn’t something Louis can just take a photo of, isn’t something that he can point a lens at. Isn’t something Louis can film either, the way he moves, the timbre and tone of his voice. No, words are all he has to immortalize Harry, to capture the depth of him in the spaces between the letters, in the pauses between the words, and _Louis isn’t a poet_ but he will damn well try to describe the way Harry looks at this exact moment.

It’s like this:

Harry’s eyes are wide, alight with wonder, with awe; his one curl falling across his forehead, brushing against his eye. His mouth has fallen open, in a small _o_ shape, lips strawberry pink. He can’t stop turning around, taking everything in; one of his hands reach out to touch a sunflower, his fingers caressing a petal gently.

“Louis.” Harry’s voice has a breathy quality to it. “Did you…do this?”

“I mean, it wasn’t just me,” Louis demurs. He gestures to where Niall, Liam and Zayn are standing, watching Harry take in the vases of roses, carnations, sunflowers and tulips set on every single flat surface. “I had some help.”

“It was Louis’ idea, though,” Liam says. “He thought that since you couldn’t go outside, we’d bring the outside to you.”

“It’s—” Harry breaks off, his voice cracking. He’s overwhelmed, Louis knows—he remembers the conversation they’d had a few weeks back, the look in Harry’s eyes at the idea of flowers. “They’re beautiful, Louis. Absolutely beautiful.”

“Yeah?” Louis can feel his face split into a smile. “It’s not much, but. I’m really glad you liked it.”

Harry clears his throat. His eyes fall on Louis; there’s _wonder_ there, in the way he regards Louis. There’s wonder and amazement and _reverence_ , and it makes Louis’ heart beat a little louder in his chest.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Harry begins, taking a step forward.

“Maybe start with the words.”

“Of course.” He’s smiling now, that same small, private smile Louis’ come to recognize. One of his heads ghost down Louis’ arm, to his hand; like this, they might be touching, might be tangling their fingers together. “Thank you, Louis.”

Louis holds his breath, tries to calm down his errant heart. “You’re welcome, Harry.”

They stare at each other for a few heartbeats more, until Niall sneezes abruptly. “Sorry,” he calls out, a hand covering his mouth as he glares at Zayn. Zayn’s wearing a stoic expression, but he’s holding a flower that’s suspiciously close to Niall’s nose. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

That makes Harry laugh, low and rumbly, and a few seconds later, Niall joins in. Zayn reaches over Niall and tickles the flower under Liam’s nose, who startles at the sensation and takes a few steps farther from Zayn and Louis looks around and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t mind staying in this moment forever.

. . .

“Happy Halloween!” Louis calls the instant he walks in the door. “Trick or treat!”

The effect of that is instantaneous—Harry appears immediately, leaning against the wall right in front of Louis.

“Happy Halloween,” Harry says, dimples out in full force. His eyes rake over Louis—cataloguing the black shirt and skinny jeans he’d put on after work, and Louis forces himself not to blush. “I’d give you candy, but you’re not dressed for the occasion. I don’t think you’re allowed to go trick or treating without a costume.”

Louis grins at him, holds up a finger. “One second,” he says, then he pulls out a white sheet from his bag. He throws it over himself, twisting it around to match his eyes to the two little holes he’d painstakingly cut out last night. “Tada!”

There’s a pause. “Louis,” Harry starts, “Are you a _ghost_?”

“I absolutely am,” Louis replies. “I figured you needed some ghostly company.”

Through the peepholes, he can see how delighted Harry is—he practically lights up like the sun. And he’s always been good-looking, Harry, but there’s something to be said for the way he looks right now, how radiant and beautiful and _happy_.

And it’s stupid, because all Louis did was take an old sheet and cut little eyeholes in it, but Harry’s acting like Louis had just hung the moon for him, looking at him with this mixture of wonderment and joy.

“Thought you didn’t like ghosts,” Harry says.

“Well,” Louis replies. “I guess some of them aren’t too bad.”

Harry’s grin, somehow, grows. “Look at us,” he says as solemnly as he can. “A pair of ghosts.”

“Two ghosts,” Louis agrees.

“All substantiality gone, but soul still present. Or well, present enough to act as if they’re still alive."

“To pretend they still have a heartbeat,” Louis tacks on, grinning. “To try and remember how it felt.”

Harry laughs. “Exactly,” he says. “You’ve really managed to capture the ghostly essence, Louis.”

“Thank you, Harold,” Louis replies primly. “Means a lot coming from an esteemed ghost such as yourself.”

“In fact,” Harry says, his eyes dancing. “This makes me want to write a song.”

“About me as a ghost?”

“About you as a ghost,” Harry confirms. He disappears; reappears on the piano bench, pats the seat beside him. “About how different you are as a ghost.”

Louis makes his way to the bench, pulls the sheet off his head. “And how, pray tell, am I different as a ghost?”

“Well,” Harry says, “you’re nicer, for one.”

“Fuck you.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “See,” he says, “once the sheet comes off, the claws come out.”

“You just make it too damn easy,” Louis says. He lines the fingers of his right hand on the keys, an _E-A_ _♭_ _-B_ chord, before pressing down on it. He expects it to sound dissonant, but it doesn’t.

Harry, for some reason, rolls with it.

“ _Same lips red, same eyes blue_ ,” Harry sings. _“Same white sheet_ —” He pauses, squints at Louis; his gaze flicks down, before snapping back up to Louis’ face. _“—couple more tattoos_.”

Louis follows his gaze, finds himself staring at his wrist tattoo. He snorts. “Really creative, that.”

Harry’s eyes twinkle. “Well,” he says, before singing, “ _It’s not you and it’s not me_.”

Louis rolls his eyes, ignores the way his stomach flutters. “That didn’t make any sense,” he says as Harry points at a chord. Louis plays it, not at all surprised at the fact that it’s harmonious with the chord he’d played before. In the weeks he’s known Harry, he’s come to realize that Harry is much more musically inclined than the average person; has always got a tune or a melody running through his head.

He’s still a shit piano teacher, though. But well, sometimes the best musicians are the worst teachers.

“It does in the context of the song,” Harry insists. He points at the next chord, and Louis shifts his fingers and plays it, forms a simple chord progression.

“Okay,” Louis says, when he gets it down. “What kind of things are you going to sing about me next? That I’m mean and terrible at my job?”

Harry raises an eyebrow, the corners of his lips twitching. “You want me to say that?”

“ _No_ ,” Louis flaps a hand at him. “I want you to shower me in compliments, Harold.”

Harry hums. “Compliments,” he says. “I can try.”

And then he falls silent, his fingers are dancing lightly over the piano keys, hovering but not pressing down. Louis watches him, watches the slope of his nose and the angle of his jawline, watches the furrow of his brow and the curl of his hair, and just when he thinks it’s been quiet for far too long, just when he’s about to speak, Harry looks at him.

“ _Looks so real_ ,” Harry begins.

Louis blinks at him. “ _Looks so real_?” He echoes. “That’s your idea of a compliment?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Because you’re a ghost but you look like you’re alive. Hence.”

“That’s because I _am_ ,” Louis says, trying to jab his elbow onto Harry’s side. It goes through, of course, but Harry still looks wounded, like it’d hurt. “I’m a real boy, Harold.”

“I know that, _Lewis_. You don’t have my ghostly complexion.”

“And thank God, for that,” Louis says. “Now, say something else about me. Something _nice_ ,” he prefaces, when Harry opens his mouth, clearly about to say the first witty thing that popped into his head. “Nothing about my bum or whatever it is you’ve thought of. I want to be able to play this to my baby siblings.”

“You don’t think your baby siblings would like to hear about your bum?” Harry asks cheekily, but he doesn’t give Louis a chance to respond to that, just points at the piano. “Go back to the first chord you played.”

Louis does as he’s told, lining up his fingers on the first three notes he’d accidentally played earlier. He plays the next two chords Harry taught him after that, and Harry cocks his head, humming quietly under his breath.

It’s a few minutes before he starts singing again. “ _Taste so sweet_ , _looks so real_ ,” he sings, and Louis opens his mouth to interject—because _what even_ is this song—but Harry plows on. “ _Sounds like something that I used to feel_. _But_ ,” he trails off, and something seems to come over Harry, because his green eyes grow a touch darker, a touch more sad. “ _I can’t touch what I see_.”

And it’s nothing—it _should_ be nothing, just another lyric in one of Harry’s dumb songs—but the words strike Louis, makes him pause. He looks at Harry, who’s looking right back at him the way he always does, his brow furrowed and his green eyes intense, his expression vulnerable, like he’s begging for Louis to understand.

Then slowly, purposefully, Harry lifts a hand, deliberately cups Louis’ cheek.

It’s light as air, Harry’s hand. In fact, if Louis hadn’t seen him do it, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was there. But he _did_ and it _is_ , and somehow, the contact sends something tingling through Louis’ veins, down his spine; makes him feel as if something has clamped down his chest and _squeezed_.

He remembers the feeling of callouses, of a rough palm. Remembers its size and its warmth and its ridges.

Louis clears his throat, tries to compose himself. “Poetic,” he says, and he hopes Harry doesn’t notice the way his voice trembles, just a little.

“I try,” Harry replies. He makes no move to pull his hand away.

“I’d even go as far as to say it’s award-winning.”

“Are you saying my songs before weren’t award-winning?”

“There’s a difference between poetry and rhyming, Harry, and I think you’ve only learned what that difference is today.”

“It helps, I think, if you’ve got good material to work with.” Harry’s still watching him, barely even blinking. If Harry was real—if Harry was _alive_ —Louis would be feeling callouses on his cheeks, a palm just on the side of rough. Harry’s hand would be warm and large, his thumb probably pressed against the jut of Louis’ cheekbone, stroking.

And for some reason, that thought makes Louis’ heart kick into overdrive, hammer against the walls of his chest like it’s begging to be let out. He…he _wants_ this, wants to feel Harry’s skin against his, to hold his hand and to feel the warmth of his body beside his, and--

“Good material,” Louis says, pushing those impossible thoughts out of his head. “I’ve been called worse.”

Harry doesn’t say anything to that, his face still fixed in that disorienting expression. Louis holds his breath, keeps still as Harry studies him, his eyes flicking to different points on Louis’ face. He’s close, closer than he’s ever been, and there’s _something_ here, something delicate unfurling, and yet for some reason Louis feels untethered, like he’s standing on the edge of the precipice waiting to freefall. And then Harry’s eyes flicker down to Louis’ lips, and his eyes darken; that slow, hungry expression crossing his face once more, and—

“I want to kiss you.”

It comes out like a breath, an exhale; a wisp of a thing so quiet that Louis isn’t sure that he hears right, at first. But Harry’s gorgeous green eyes are darker than he’s ever seen them and his tongue darts out to wet his red lips, and he swallows, the pale line of his throat working like he’s just said something he shouldn’t have and his hand has left its perch on Louis’ and is now hanging mid-air, the phantom feeling of Harry’s hand beside Louis’ face, and all Louis can think is, _oh_.

_Oh._

Because it occurs to him, in between this breath and the next, in between each harried staccato of his heart, that he’d very much like to kiss Harry too.

And he’s an idiot. A goddamn idiot, because thinking about it, he should’ve known—should’ve realized it in the way spending time with Harry grew less and less of a chore, in the time spent entertaining Harry’s asinine, even borderline absurd requests. Should’ve noticed when Harry’s hauntings became less annoying and more amusing, Should’ve noticed when he’d started to spend showings less concerned about the client and more concerned about Harry, always somewhere in Louis’ line of sight. He should’ve noticed but he _didn’t_ , and somehow, this strange fondness crept up on him, grew like vines around his heart until Louis was all tangled up with no way out.

Zayn had warned him, too—had told him to take care of his heart. Told him if anything happened between him and Harry, it wouldn’t end well, because Harry is dead and Harry is a _ghost_ and Harry is simply haunting the flat Louis is supposed to sell. _Don’t go and fall for a ghost_ , is what Zayn had said, and Louis—

Louis went and fell for a ghost.

Because that’s what this is. That’s what this consistent fluttering feeling in his stomach is, that’s what the jackrabbiting of his heart is trying to tell him. That’s what every single cell in his body is telling him, vibrating with the need for it. Louis wants to kiss Harry, who listens to Britney Spears on repeat; Louis wants to kiss Harry, who writes stupid songs. Louis wants to kiss Harry and Harry wants to kiss Louis and they can’t fucking _do_ anything about it, because one of them is dead and one of them is alive and they can’t even touch most days without it being an effort.

Louis must be silent for so long because suddenly Harry is averting his eyes, pulling his hands away. “You don’t have to say anything,” he says. “You don’t have to return the sentiment. I just thought that you should know.”

“I—” For a moment, Louis doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to vocalize everything that’s running through his mind, to describe the puzzle pieces clicking into place, painting a clear picture of the depth of his feelings. Doesn’t know if he should throw all caution to the wind and just _say_ it. He’s heard that saying it makes it real, means that you believe it and you can never take it back.

 _But it is real_ , a voice in his mind says. It’s real and it’s true, his sudden feelings for Harry, and _don’t go and fall for a ghost_ , Zayn says, but Louis’ already gone and done that, and denying it won’t go and change anything.

And so Louis licks his lips, lets his mouth run away from him. “I think—yeah,” he stammers, words tripping over themselves, tripping over the way Harry is looking at him, open and vulnerable. “I want that, too.”

. . .

(When Zayn, Liam, and Niall arrive, dressed in their own shitty, homemade costumes, he and Harry have just managed to finish about half the song. Harry sings while Louis plays it on the piano, and all the while Harry keeps his eyes trained at Louis, his hand on Louis’ thigh.

If the they notice that something’s changed, they don’t mention it.)

. . .

It’s hard, having feelings for a ghost.

And it’s not as if Louis had the easiest romantic life ever—he’d been closeted in sixth form, cheated on at uni, lost a two-year relationship because of a commitment-phobe partner, and had a bunch of one night stands here and there—but _this_. This takes the cake. This takes _all_ the cake and then some of the cupcakes too, because Harry is dead and is a ghost and Louis is the idiot who’d somehow managed to completely disregard the terrible logistics of that and fallen for him anyway.

But the worst part is, the realization doesn’t change anything. Louis still sneaks off work early to see Harry and he still listens to stupid songs with Harry and he still does all his paperwork in the flat that’s become to feel more like home than _his_ own apartment and it just.

It sucks.

“It sucks, lads,” Louis declares a few days later, sat at his regular pub with the lads. They’re three pints in, and Louis is currently entertaining getting a fourth, become he doesn’t think he’s drunk enough yet. “It just genuinely fucking _sucks_.”

From across the table, Liam blinks at him. “What does?”

“Just.” Louis gestures vaguely. “Everything. I don’t know. I hate my job.”

“You hate your job?” Niall sounds surprised at that. “If we didn’t have your job, we wouldn’t have met Harry.”

“I know.” He knows. And maybe without his job, Louis would’ve been smarter, would’ve latched onto a different, cute boy, one that he _actually_ has a chance of being with. “It’s just. I wish he was here, ’s all.”

A knowing look crosses Liam’s face. “Louis,” he begins, his tone serious. “I don’t think it’s good for you to think that.”

“Why not?”

Liam exchanges a glance with Zayn. “Because he’s a ghost,” he says, leaning forward to be heard better. “Like, I like Harry too, but it’s just.” He pauses. “I don’t think there’s a way to bring him back.”

And the thing is, Liam’s right. Harry is a ghost, which presumably means that Harry is _dead_ , and someone who’s dead doesn’t usually get to come back to life. Barring like, dark magic, of course, but one, Louis doesn’t know anybody who is practicing dark magic; and two, he’s not sure if he _wants_ to be dabbling in that. He’s seen what happened to Lord Voldemort. He doesn’t want that happening to him.

“I don’t want you to be giving yourself false hope,” Liam continues. “I know he means a lot to you, but Harry’s not going to be human again.”

“I know, Li, I know.” Louis rests his head in his hands. “It’s just like. He’s a charming and funny and sometimes I wish I could bring him out of the flat, just so he can hang out with us or see the outside world or whatever. Like, it’d be nice if he could join us tonight, you know?”

He can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop wondering what it’d be like, to have Harry in public beside him. To be able to see him doing the little things—what would he like to eat, maybe? What kind of drink would he get at a bar? How would he look when he’s tipsy? Drunk?

A knowing look crosses Zayn’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says carefully. “It would’ve.” He pauses. “But, like Liam said, Harry’s not going to be human again. And if you fell for him, there’s no way anything between you guys is going to end well.

Louis blows out a breath. Picks up his pint, takes a sip of it, then decides _fuck_ _it_ and downs the rest. When he resurfaces, he finds Zayn, Liam and Niall blinking at him, a little taken aback.

“This would probably be a bad time to admit to you guys that I’ve developed feelings for him, wouldn’t it?”

Zayn, Liam, and Niall all exchange looks. “Shots,” Niall says eventually. “We need shots.”

. . .

Louis’ vision is spinning at the edges, and his feet can’t seem to stay planted on the ground, but his hands barely shake as he fits the key into the lock, turns it easily. Harry’s already standing across the threshold when he throws the door open, still, as if he’d been interrupted mid-movement.

“Harry,” Louis says, and then he stumbles over his own feet and into the flat. “Harry, Harry, Harry, _Harry_.”

“Louis,” Harry greets, his mouth twitching like he’s holding back a smile. “It’s nice to see you too. What are you doing here?”

“We went drinking without you,” Louis says, stumbling as he takes a step forward.

“I can see that.”

“We went drinking,” Louis amends, “and I missed you.”

Sometime, during the evening, Zayn, Liam and Niall had decided that he’d needed to rest—had shepherded his drunk arse out the pub and into the cold night air with the intention of sobering him up enough and getting him home. But Louis hadn’t been tired yet and he’d missed Harry so terribly and he’d always been quite a good actor, even while drunk, so he’d managed to convince the lads that he’d be okay getting home alone and ended up coming here.

At his words, Harry’s grin momentarily breaks free. “I missed you too,” he says easily. “But it’s four in the morning.”

“Is it?” Louis pulls out his phone to check. “Wow, it’s early.”

“Yes,” Harry says. “But it’s considered late if you stayed up the whole night.”

Harry’s eyes, Louis thinks, are probably the most beautiful he’s ever seen—so fucking green, so fucking _expressive_. Every emotion, every thought he has reflected in them like surface of a lake and _it’s not fair_ because Harry is a fucking ghost and like. Ghosts shouldn’t be this beautiful. It shouldn’t be _allowed_.

“Ghosts shouldn’t be allowed to be this beautiful,” Louis says, because he’s drunk and he has no filter.

“What?”

“Like.” Louis waves a hand towards Harry. His feet take him on a memorized path; somehow managing to get him sprawled out on the couch without accidentally braining himself on any stray corners. “It’s just not fair.”

“You’re losing me.” Harry appears right beside him--of course he does—perches himself on the space beside Louis. One of his hands come up to rest on Louis’ ankle. “ _What_ isn’t fair?”

Louis makes a noise. “Your beauty,” he says. “Your face. You.”

Harry’s expression, at that, wavers; his eyes stayed glued on Louis, though, watching him like he’s a particularly endearing tiny animal that he wants to cup in his hands and bring home. It’s an expression Louis particularly likes—he thinks there’s hardly anything he wants more than to be held in Harry’s hands.

But he can’t because life isn’t fair like that; can’t because Harry is probably the epitome of everything Louis wants but can’t have. Louis just wants to touch him, to hold his hand; to feel the warmth of Harry’s hand pressed against his skin, his side, his back. He wants and he wants and it drives him crazy, how Harry is there but always out of reach, always slipping through his fingers like he’s made of atmosphere and starlight.

“I want you to touch me.” It takes him a moment to realize that those words have come from _him_.

Harry’s expression wavers. “You know I can’t do that,” he says.

“Why not? You’ve done it before.”

In his peripheral vision, Louis sees Harry’s hand on his ankle twitch, like he’s trying to squeeze it but he’s unable to. “It’s getting a little harder, nowadays,” Harry says.

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. He’s still watching Louis. “Sometimes.”

There’s a strange sort of awareness dawning on Louis, making everything around him feel distant, fuzzy. Everything except Harry, that is, who seems to be the only point Louis can focus on. He’s the clearest thing right now, the clearest thing in this whole damn universe, and really, all Louis wants is _his hands_ , to feel them on his skin.

There’s something coiling low in his belly—a familiar heat growing. He shifts, just so it’s easier to see Harry, easier to keep him in his line of sight. “I think,” he begins, “you were sent here to ruin me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re the bane of my existence.” Louis doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore, words spilling out of him like a river, like a waterfall. “You’re the most gorgeous person I’ve ever fucking _seen_ and I can’t even—”

 _I can’t even touch you_ , he doesn’t say. But Harry hears it anyway, judging by the way his expression shifts minutely.

What would it be like, Louis wonders, if he could just reach out and touch Harry? Tangle their fingers together without worrying about it fading after a few seconds? What would feel like, to be able to climb onto Harry’s lap and kiss him whenever he wants, however long he wanted? To have Harry’s hand pressed on the small of his back, under his shirt, warmth seeping out from it; Harry’s hand, edging lower and lower, until—

“Louis.” When Harry speaks again, there’s an edge to his voice. “Stop it.”

Louis grins up at him sweetly. Flutters his eyelashes a little, just for the way it makes Harry’s throat works. “What am I doing?”

It’s a rhetorical question. Louis knows exactly what he’s doing. So does Harry. After all, the evidence is right there, stirring; the front of his jeans getting tighter by the second. 

“Don’t,” Harry says. “Louis, you can’t—”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“I know what you’re thinking.” Harry amends. His eyes are glued on Louis, at the way he’s sprawled out. His hand travels upwards, past his shin, onto his thigh, and Louis thinks, if he tries hard enough, he can feel it. 

“Yeah?” Louis says, the alcohol in his veins making him wild. Reckless. “What am I thinking, then? Tell me.”

“Louis—”

“Or maybe I should tell you,” Louis says. All the blood in his body is travelling south, enough that it’s undeniable now, how Louis is feeling. How Harry is making him feel. “Think maybe you’d like to know, anyway. It’s all about you.”

“Louis,” Harrry says again, but doesn’t add anything else.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it too,” he says. His hand drifts down, his palm presses against the bulge in his trousers. When he speaks again, his voice comes out a little higher, a little more breathy. “I see the way you look at me sometimes.”

Harry doesn’t tear his eyes away. “You’re really going to jerk off in your workplace?”

“I’m jerking off where you are.” Louis corrects him. He presses down against his cock once more, rolling his hips up a little, before he’s unbuttoning his trousers, sliding down the zipper. “And besides, if you haven’t jerked off at your job, you haven’t lived.”

“‘S probably why I died then.”

“Most probably.”

Harry’s eyes are darker now than Louis’ ever seen them. Lower lip caught in between his teeth, like he’s trying to stop himself from saying things he shouldn’t.

What kind of dirty things, Louis wonders, would spill out of Harry’s mouth?

“Louis,” Harry says again. Tries to sound like he’s saying _stop it_. Louis knows better though—knows the cadence of his voice and the set of his body and the hungry look in his eyes, and knows it to mean _continue_.

Still though. “If you don’t want to see this,” Louis says, “tell me now.”

There’s a stillness. Harry doesn’t say anything.

“Well then,” Louis says, and he’s pulling down his trousers and his underwear in one go, his cock fully hard and springing free. The inhale Harry makes is far too loud in the quiet of the night.

There’s something rather exhilarating about this—something that makes the flame in Louis’ belly burn brighter, licking at his veins. Something that makes him a little more theatrical maybe, like he’s putting on a show.

It’s rough, when he wraps a hand around his cock, gives himself that first stroke. Far too dry. But Louis is too drunk, both on the alcohol in his veins and in the way Harry is looking at him like he’s the only thing that fucking matters, to care too much.

“You enjoying?” Louis asks. Strokes himself faster, utilizing the sudden blurt of precome to make the glide smoother, alleviate the friction. Harry’s gaze is still glued on him, expression is hungry, predatory, like he has no qualms picking Louis up and then throwing him down onto the bed before devouring every inch of him.

He probably would, if he were tangible. As it is, all Harry does is inch his hand higher, until his fingers are ghosting at Louis’ balls.

“You’re going too fast,” Harry says.

Louis raises an eyebrow at him. “I know how to touch myself, Harry.”

“No, you don’t.” Harry replies. And then, “What are you thinking of.”

It’s not even a question, the way Harry says it. No, it’s more like he _demands_ it, his voice an octave deeper than Louis’ ever heard it before.

“You,” Louis replies. Brutally honest by virtue of being brutally drunk. “Your hands. On me.”

“See,” Harry says, “you say that, but if I was the one touching you, I wouldn’t be going as fast as you were.”

 _If Harry was touching him_. “Yeah?” Louis replies. “How would you do it then?”

Harry licks his lips, swallows. Says, “take your hand off your cock,” in a voice that’s all hard edge, all steel.

All authority.

Louis doesn’t realize he’s stopped until he registers the quiet, nothing but the sound of his ragged breathing punctuating the air. Harry rakes his eyes over Louis’ body slowly, taking him in, memorizing the points of him.

“Christ,” he says eventually. Voice reverent. “Trying to kill me all over again, aren’t you?”

Louis flushes all over. His hand inches its way back to his cock, leaking all over.

Harry’s eyes snap towards the movement. “Did I say you could touch yourself?”

Louis’ hand stills. “No,” he answers, and he tries not to make it sound like a whine. “But. I wanna come.”

“And you will,” Harry says agreeably. “But here’s the thing. If you want to do it my way, then I’m the one who gets to say when you can come.”

And that’s—

There’s so many things Louis could say to that— _no_ , or _fuck you,_ or maybe just completely ignore Harry, put his hand back on his cock and stroke himself to release. But, he finds he doesn’t want to; finds that he wants to listen to Harry, to relinquish all control over to him.

“Hand back on your cock,” Harry says, and Louis complies easily. “Touch yourself. _Slowly_.”

It’s insane, Louis thinks, how none of his previous sexual encounters have ever been like this before, have ever felt like this before. Nothing like this intensity, this edge—the flames in his belly licking at his veins, setting him on fire from the inside.

“I’d kiss you first.” It takes a moment for Harry’s words to register in Louis’ lust-addled brain. “Take my time kissing you. Your lips, your neck, your shoulders—I’d put my mouth _everywhere_.”

Harry curls his hand around Louis’. It doesn’t feel like _anything_ , but Louis is struck by its sheer size, how much bigger it is compared to his own. He doesn’t realize he’s moaning until he hears it echo in the room, bouncing against the walls.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “Wanna taste you. Cover you in bruises the shape of my mouth.”

The glide of Louis’ hand is slick now, the precome alleviating the friction. “Harry,” Louis says. Moans.

“Faster,” Harry orders, and Louis obeys, his hand picking up speed. “Put my mouth on your arse too. Lord knows I’ve spent far too long wondering how you would taste beneath my tongue. Like strawberries, maybe.”

“Strawberries,” Louis echoes. His heart is pounding in his chest, and he’s so turned on he’s light-headed with it, his pulse rushing through his veins. “Harry, I—”

“You’d probably be loud, wouldn’t you,” Harry says. Casual. Musing, if not for the edge of his voice, one that tells Louis he’s just as into this as Louis is. “Make all the goddamn noise in the world. I‘d probably have to gag you to shut you up.”

Louis’ breath hitches. He…he _wants_. “Please” he moans, fucking up into his fist. He strokes himself faster; this time, Harry doesn’t stop him.

“Until you’re crying,” Harry continues. His eyes are brands against Louis’ skin, his hand still . “Eat you out until you were crying, finger you until you’re wet and open and _begging_ for me.”

“Please,” Louis says. He’s close, can feel his orgasm pulling at his belly. “Harry, _please_.”

“Christ,” Harry says again. Takes a deep breath, his hand leaving its perch on Louis’, moving up until it’s hovering beside Louis’ face. His eyes are dark, intense; he grazes a thumb down Louis’ lips. “It’s okay, baby,” he says. “You can come now.”

“ _Fuck_ —” And it’s only three more strokes until Louis’ orgasm is hitting him like a freight train, spilling all over his shirt and on his trousers. His mind blanks out, all the muscles in his body coiled up for a few moments before they’re relaxing, bliss overtaking every cell in his body. He finds that he’s a mess when he opens his eyes, come all over his shirt and his trousers, and none on the couch.

“Didn’t get any on the couch,” Louis tells him proudly. Everything’s a bit hazy, blurred at the seams. His limbs seem to have grown heavier, fatigue settling in his muscles.

“You better not have,” Harry says. He’s still watching Louis, eyes looking like he wouldn’t be opposed for a round two. “How on earth are you going to sell this place if you did?”

Louis divests himself of his shirt, uses it to clean up the rest of the come on his stomach. “Oh, so you’re worried about me selling it now?” He tosses his shirt somewhere; he’ll pick it up off the hardwood later. “Thought you didn’t want me to.”

“I _don’t_ want you to,” Harry says. “I just don’t know if I’d be willing to live in a place with your come stain on the couch.”

Louis laughs. “Shut up,” he says. His eyelids are heavy; he doesn’t resist when they close, colours flashing beneath his lids. “Missed you tonight, Harry.”

It’s quiet for a few more moments, Louis feeling himself sinking deeper and deeper into sleep, blissful and content and _happy_. And just when he’s right at the cusp, he feels something brush against his forehead, so quick that he might’ve imagined it.

“Good night, Louis,” Harry murmurs, and that’s how Louis falls asleep, half naked and curled up on Harry’s couch.

. . .

The next day, Liam appears in the flat at around one in the afternoon, looking like a mixture of confused and annoyed. He’s got a change of clothes and a bucket of cleaning supplies in tow, and honestly, Louis could kiss him.

“Liam,” he declares solemnly. “I could kiss you.”

Liam makes a face. “You could do that,” he says. He looks around, takes in Louis’ shirt on the floor, his black trousers, covered in suspicious-looking white stains, and Harry, who’s hovering in the room, a smug yet guilty expression on his face. A light dawns in his eyes. “But I’m still not helping you clean your fucking come off the floor.”

At that, Harry bursts into laughter.

. . .

It doesn’t dawn on Louis that there’s something wrong with Harry until it’s thirty minutes into the showing and Harry hasn’t moved anything around

Usually, it doesn’t take him long—Louis’ always just about starting up the tour when Harry starts moving things; a chair being pushed an inch to the left, a table magazine being flicked open. Small things, little things, that he’ll later build up on.

But today, he doesn’t move even a single photo frame.

He waits until the door closes behind the client before he’s turning around, his eyes immediately tracking the room for Harry. “Harry?” He calls, and a few seconds later, Harry is on the couch, his head bowed.

“I can’t,” is the first thing he says. His voice is dull, lifeless. “I can’t touch _anything_.”

Louis knows he’d been having trouble moving things recently—Harry’s hauntings, which once used to be pretty dramatic, had been reduced. It’s smaller things, simpler things now; just a few items being moved here and there, the lights flickering, the stereo coming alive. It still worked to scare away clients, but it’s a stark contrast from the times Harry would flip over furniture, or throw table magazines at the wall.

But it’s the first time he’s been unable to touch _anything_.

“Shit day?” Louis asks, keeping his tone light. Harry already doesn’t look well—his skin, naturally pale, seems to have turned a shade lighter.

“Headache,” Harry replies. “Can’t focus.”

It’s the saddest Louis’ ever seen him. He makes his way to sit on the space beside Harry, hoping that somehow, his presence brings comfort. Warmth. “It’s okay, love,” he soothes, and he wishes, more than ever, that Harry was tangible so he can run a hand through his curls, rub his back. “I don’t think the guy was interested in the flat.”

The client, Adam, had been the proud owner of two cats whom he’d loved very much. He’d said that the flat was lovely, but he didn’t think it’d be ‘the proper place’ for his cats to live. The furniture had just been a bit on the pricey side for him to justify letting his cats run around and possibly digging their claws in everything.

“I know,” Harry says, his tone still dull. “But I just _can’t_ —” Louis watches, as he opens and closest his fists, as he takes a deep breath and tries to touch something, _anything_. His hand phases through the coffee table, through the throw pillows on the couch; he places his hand on Louis’ leg, and Louis bites his lip, shakes his head.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Harry says.

“Hey, no,” Louis says, gentle. “You’ve had shit days before. It’ll pass, I’m sure."

Harry lets out a breath, slumps back into the couch. “I hope so,” he tells Louis. “I really fucking hope so.”

. . .

It doesn’t pass.

The next day, Harry barely manages to move a magazine. The day after that, he’s only able to turn the lights off once. And the day after _that_ , he doesn’t move anything at all, his hands ghosting through things as Louis watches him, pretends to listen to the client.

“There’s something wrong with me,” Harry says, once they’re alone. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“So maybe it’s a shit week,” Louis replies, keeping his voice light. “Everyone has a shit week once in a while.”

“Not like this,” Harry says. “It’s never felt like this.”

If Louis’ being honest, there’s worry creeping up the back of his brain—Harry had been feeling consistently under the weather the past week, his skin never returning to its normal, porcelain colour.

“You’ve had terrible days before,” Louis says, pushing those thoughts out of his mind. Harry has gotten better before and he _will_ get better again, and soon he’ll be up and about making Louis’ job that much harder again. “You’ve always managed to move past them, and you will again.”

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. “This feels different, Lou,” he says, voice raw. “I’m scared.”

“You’ll be okay,” Louis says optimistically. “I promise.”

. . .

And then Harry starts forgetting things.

Not big things, at first—the name of the bee in the _Bee Movie_ , the plot of _Casper_. But then he forgets Antoni’s name in _Queer Eye_ , forgets the title of that Taylor Swift song they’d danced to, a few weeks ago. Forgets the name of his wifi, forgets _Britney Spears_ and his beloved album, and it’s just. It’s dawning on Louis that there seems to be something off with Harry, that this isn’t just going to be another shit week he can shake off.

“I’m scared you’ll forget me,” Louis says. Half-jokes. He doesn’t want to take it too seriously—if he did, he’s afraid that he might cry. Louis’ always been a bit of a crier.

Because this, if he’s being honest, worries him—feels like it’s something bigger than him, than Harry, than the both of them combined. This feels like something Louis can’t fix, no matter how badly he wants to.

Harry doesn’t look up from where he’s watching an episode of _Queer Eye_ on Louis’ laptop. “I won’t,” he says simply.

“You say that now, but watch, in two weeks’ time, you’ll be an old man, screaming at me and asking me what I’m doing in your flat.”

This time, Harry looks up at him,. “I’d never forget you, Louis,” he says. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“How do you know?”

Harry shrugs. “I just do,” he replies. “Feels like you’re a part of me.”

Harry’s gaze is so green that it pins Louis, makes all the half-formed jokes die on his tongue. And he’s so beautiful and earnest and confident and sincere that a lump forms in Louis’ throat, one that he has to speak through.

“Okay,” Louis says. Smiles at Harry, watches him smile back. “I believe you.”

. . .

A few days after that, the lads come round after work, bringing with them some Chinese takeaway and beer. The promise of company brightens up Harry’s mood, enough that he’s entertained as Niall regales him an unfortunate incident Liam had with a girl in a leopard print dress at the bar.

“Shit,” Harry laughs, gasping for air, as Niall mimics the girl’s mannerisms and Liam laughs into his hands. “Holy shit.”

Even all lit up like this, Louis can see something wrong; Harry’s smiling but it’s not as bright, Harry’s laughing but it’s not as loud. It’s as if Harry’s growing smaller, no longer occupying the same amount of space he used to, everything around him trying to drown him out.

A hand falls on his shoulder. “Hey,” says Zayn. He’s got a cigarette pack and a lighter in one hand, and a curious look on his face. “Come smoke with me?”

“But I quit,” Louis protests, and gets up anyway, follows Zayn into the kitchen. There’s a window right behind the kitchen sink and Louis props it open, gestures for Zayn to hoist himself on the counter. Zayn does, and it’s only when he’s managed to get his cigarette lit up does he speak.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

Louis shakes his head. “Nothing,” he answers on impulse.

Zayn knows him well enough to spot that it’s a lie.

Zayn studies him for a moment, his brown eyes knowing. “Okay,” he amends. “Tell me what’s up with Harry.”

“What?”

“There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?”

“I—” Louis doesn’t speak, doesn’t know what to say. “He’s been feeling a little under the weather recently. But he’ll be okay, I think. He just needs to rest.”

Zayn gives him a dubious look. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Louis replies, a little defensive. “Why?”

“I just think that it’s a little bit more serious than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Zayn takes a drag of his cigarette, thinking. “He asked me for my name, earlier. When we came in.”

Louis’ heart stops in its motion. “What?”

“Don’t get me wrong, he was very apologetic about it,” Zayn says. “But still. Told me he’d been having trouble remembering things.” He pauses. “Also, he’s practically see-through now?”

And, _oh_. Holy _shit_.

Thinking back on it, Harry had been almost completely opaque the first time they met him, to the point that he’d looked almost _real_. Now, though, Louis realizes that he’s much closer to _transparent_. It’s much easier to see _through_ him now—the light shining through parts of him, the edges of him faded, the details of him blurred.

Coupled with the fact that Harry’s no longer able to move things around, the fact that he’s losing his memory, and—

“Fuck.” The realization hits him like a punch to the gut, a stab wound to the heart. “Harry’s fading.”

“What?’

“He’s fading,” Louis repeats. He looks out to the living room, where Harry’s now listening to Liam talk about something. Louis doesn’t know how he’d completely overlooked the signs, missed the way Harry’s edges have become less defined, the way the details of him have become more and more blurred. “I read about it, before. How ghosts fade away after a while.”

At the time he hadn’t paid it any mind, too busy looking up ways on how to get rid of Harry fast. But he remembers _Reddit_ threads and blog articles, remembers how a few suggested just simply sitting and waiting, because ghosts are bound to fade after a certain amount of time.

Zayn must see something on Louis’ face because he’s tossing the rest of his cigarette out the window, hopping down from the counter to grab Louis’ shoulders. “Louis,” he says. “Breathe.”

Louis hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. He does as he’s told. “We have to save him, Zayn. We have to.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Louis says, almost desperately. Harry’s _fading_ ; Harry can’t be fading, Louis isn’t prepared to lose him quite yet. “Like, there must be something on the internet, right? There’s always all sorts of things on there—”

“Breathe, Lou,” Zayn interrupts, and Louis obeys, sucking in a breath. “Look, Louis. Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m all for saving Harry, but.” Zayn’s mouth twists, in an almost sad way. “I don’t know how we’re going to save the spirit of a dead man.”

Because that’s what Harry is. A dead man. The reminder hits him more painfully than it ever did before.

Harry hasn’t got a body, Harry hasn’t got a life. It’s simply his spirit floating around, roaming these walls, living and laughing with Louis.

“And even if we could,” Zayn continues, always frank, always Louis’ voice of reason, “What would we have him do? Live as a ghost forever?”

Louis doesn’t know. “I don’t know,” he tells Zayn, past the lump in his throat. “I don’t know, Z, but we have to _try_. I can’t—I can’t lose him, Z.”

 _I don’t want to_ , he doesn’t say, but he thinks Zayn hears it anyway.

There’s a pause where Zayn just studies him, his brown eyes sad. “Okay,” he says eventually. “We’ll…we’ll try our best.”

. . .

According to Google, ghosts only exist because they’ve got unfinished business. According to Google, ghosts also stay because they’ve got an attachment so intense that it transcends this plane of existence. According to Google, in order to get a ghost to leave, it has to let go of its tether to the material world, forget everything, and go into the light.

So Louis decides to do the complete opposite of all that.

. . .

He goes to Harry’s even more now, spends all of his free time there. Convinces the lads to drop by whenever they can, because Harry is disappearing slowly, in bits and pieces, and maybe, _maybe_ , spending more time around people will get him to stay. He stops actively searching for people to buy the flat—he still responds when he gets requests for showings, of course, but other than that, he doesn’t reach out to anyone. He needs Harry to _stay_ , and losing the flat to someone could very well mean that Harry will end up disappearing forever.

Of course, due to the fact that Harry is now unable to move anything around, Louis keeps getting one good showing after another. It’s only by a combination of sheer luck and Louis’ skill in talking about the flat being potentially haunted that none of them actually take it, and it buys Louis a bit of time.

. . .

“I really quite like the flat,” the client, Leonard, tells Louis. This is the second time he’s looking around—Louis had thought he’d managed to scare him off a week ago, talking about the ‘strange activity’ people have claimed to witness about the flat, but now he’s back. “But I don’t know.”

Louis keeps his smile plastered on his face. Tries not to look at Harry, who’s hovering, obviously eavesdropping. “Do you need more time to think about it?” He asks brightly.

Leonard laughs. “Quite frankly, I’m sold,” he says, and beside him, Harry deflates a little. “It’s more of my wife’s opinion, really.”

Louis bites his lip. “You don’t think she’ll like it?” If Leonard notices the hopeful tone in his voice, he doesn’t say anything.

“Well, she can be quite picky.” Leonard runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, obviously deep in thought. “She’s very attached to our current place. Which is fine, except that in terms of upkeep, it might not be economically feasible. I mean, all the kids have moved out, and we’ve got no use for four guest bedrooms.”

“Maybe if you filled the place with cats.” So sue him, he’s a bit of an optimist.

Leonard, however, seems to take that as a joke because he’s chuckles. “Now there’s an idea,” he says. He smiles at Louis, the lines on his face kind. “I’ll schedule another showing, bring her `round. Then we’ll let you know if we’re closing.”

“Alright.”

“Thank you again, Louis,” Leonard says, giving him a handshake, before he’s picking up his briefcase, making his way out of the flat. Louis watches him leave, and once the door closes behind him, he’s whirling around, joining Harry where he’s sat on the couch.

“Hey, love,” he says. “It’s okay. We haven’t closed yet.”

When Harry speaks, his voice is small lost. “But what if his wife likes it?”

“It’s possible that she won’t. You heard the man. She’s rather picky.”

Louis sees Harry’s shoulders move, as if he’s taking a deep breath. “But what if she _does_?” Harry says, and Louis’ heart aches at the way his voice breaks. “This is my _home_ , Louis, this is the clearest thing I remember and I can’t—”

He breaks off, doesn’t finish his sentence, but Louis understands, anyway. _I can’t lose this too_.

And Louis doesn’t know what to say that, doesn’t even know where to _begin_. After all, it’s not something he can prevent—the flat isn’t _his_ to keep or to give up. No, Louis is only here because he’d been given the impossible task of selling it, the middleman watching as property gets transferred from one name to the next.

It’s nothing he can promise, but everything he wants to.

So at the end of the day, Louis sits next to Harry, lets him draw comfort from his presence. At the end of the day, Harry tries to touch him but isn’t able to, hands phasing through. At the end of the day, Louis closes his eyes tries not to think of how everything’s starting to fall apart, slipping through his fingers like sand.

. . .

“Louis.” James pauses right by Louis’ desk, holding a folder. Louis straightens up in his seat, smiles at him, trying his best not to look like he’d been watching the clock tick for the last five minutes. “Here.”

He sets the folder down on Louis’ desk, and Louis picks it up, flips through it. The familiar words of a closing contract stare back at him, the dotted lines where the client should sign marked by a few post-it tabs.

“It’s Nick’s,” James explains, when Louis looks up at him questioningly. “He was supposed to close with a client today, but he got an emergency call and had to leave. He doesn’t think he’ll make it back on time and the client absolutely cannot reschedule, so he asked if you could do it.”

“What a wanker,” Louis mutters under his breath, looking through the papers. It seems like a standard closing, one Louis could do in his sleep, but it’ll add an extra two hours on his work day. Two hours that he could be spending with Harry. “Can’t it be anyone else?”

James waves a hand. “Nick specifically said you,” he says. “Something about you owing him.” He sighs, pushing his hair back. “Look, I don’t care if it’s you or Nick or whatever, but I just _need_ this done.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Louis says, saluting him with two fingers. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

James gives him a close-mouth smile, before walking away, presumably to do other more important things. Louis waits until he’s out of sight before he’s whipping out his phone from his pocket.

 _Asshole_ , he texts Nick, giving him the middle finger emoji.

The reply comes three minutes later. _You owe me_ , Nick’s text reads. _Remember when you asked me to close for you?_

That he does. And Nick had been brilliant for covering for him on such notice, delivering the papers at nine on the dot with little to no snide comments, but. It’s still a bit annoying that Louis has to work late today. He’d wanted to spend more time with Harry.

 _Fuck you_ , he sends, as a reply to Nick. _Tell me where I’m going to drop off the papers_.

. . .

The address Nick sends him is one of a private hospital a little outside London. Louis’ a bit confused by that.

 _This is a hospital_ , Louis texts to Nick, standing outside the entrance. He peeks inside through the glass doors, catches sight of people bustling about, doctors doing their rounds, nurses working their shifts.

 _Are you dying???_ Louis sends again, when Nick doesn’t reply. He’s not comfortable waiting outside; it’s cold, the chill seeping in through his layers, and already it’s beginning to rain, fat little droplets falling from the sky.

Louis doesn’t want to get soaked, and he doesn’t think Nick would want his contract soaked, so he thinks _fuck it_ and heads inside.

 _I’m going inside_ , he texts Nick. _You better get your arse here in the next five minutes or I’m shredding these papers_.

It’s quite a posh hospital—with high ceilings and pristine walls. Louis is immediately beckoned over by a nurse with kind eyes and a nice smile, and Louis smiles back at her and shakes his head.

“Don’t need anything, me,” he says. “Just waiting for someone.”

A place this posh probably has something like a _no loitering_ policy, but if they do, the nurse doesn’t tell him, just smiles at him again and turns back to the paperwork on her desk. Louis takes a seat on one of the waiting chairs, feeling a little awkward and out of place.

It’s another five minutes until he spots Nick, emerging from a door clutching two large teas. “Grimshaw,” he calls, and Nick’s head whips up, catches sight of Louis sitting in the lobby.

“Oh, Tomlinson.” Nick walks towards him. “You’re early. I didn’t expect you until a bit later.”

Louis stands up, smooths down his trousers. “Finished it earlier,” he explains. “I texted you I was here.”

“I don’t have my phone on me.”

Louis scoffs. “You? Without your phone? Unbelievable.”

“It happens sometimes,” Nick says. He takes a sip of one of the teas in his hand. “You got my closing?”

“Obviously,” Louis says, exasperated. He digs through his bag, pulls out two thick folders. “Here.”

Nick looks at them, then looks at the teas in his hand. He swears under his breath. “Right,” he says. “Er, d’you mind just holding onto them and coming with me? I’ll take them off you in a bit.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever.”

Nick gets him past the nurse at the reception— _he’ll only be a minute, Jessica_ —and then he’s leading Louis to an elevator, through a maze of corridors. Louis looks around, reads the numbers on the plaques of the doors: _321, 322, 323, 324._

Eventually they stop in front of room _328_ , and Nick knocks gently. Louis here’s a quiet voice say _come in_ , and then Nick is gesturing for him to open the door.

“Sorry, it took me a bit, Anne,” Nick says, waltzing in like he’s been here a million times. He passes the other tea to a woman sat on the armchair by the bed. “Ran into my co-worker out in the lobby.”

“The one who covered for you today?”

“That’s the one.”

Anne looks at him. Louis smiles up at her and offers his hand. “Louis, ma’am,” he says.

She takes it. “Lovely to meet you,” she says, smiling. “And please, call me Anne.”

Anne, Louis thinks, looks familiar—he’s definitely never met her before, but there’s something about her features that reminds him of someone. Her nose, maybe, or the curve of her lips when she smiles.

“Right,” Nick says, setting down his own tea. “Let me just grab my bag and then you can pass those to me.”

He turns around, and Louis takes the opportunity to look around the hospital room. There’s a flower arrangement on the night table, an obnoxious _Get Well Soon!_ balloon floating from above it. There’s a book on the empty armchair beside Anne, open and face down, like she’d simply decided to stop reading it. On the wall, there’s a mounted telly, playing reruns of _FRIENDS_. And lying on the bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines, is—  
  
 _Harry_.  
  
Louis freezes in shock, his eyes glued to the body on the bed. He blinks for a bit, trying to see if his mind is playing tricks on him.  
  
But it isn’t, because that’s _Harry_ lying on the bed, eyes closed and breathing deep. _His_ Harry.

He’s skinnier, much more sickly looking—his skin sallow and his hair not as shiny—but there’s no mistaking him. Louis has memorized the slope of that exact nose, the angle of his jawline; would never not recognize the way his hair curls or the myriad of tattoos on his left arm.

And it hits him, like a lightning bolt down his spine, like a train car speeding right into him—Harry is fucking _alive_.

“Louis?” He hears, and when he turns, he sees Nick looking at him curiously. He’d set down his bag on the space beside Anne’s book, top already unzipped. “Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

 _Because I just have_ , Louis decidedly does not say. He hands Nick the folders, unable to stop himself from looking at Harry’s still, sleeping form. Even asleep, there’s still something about Harry that draws the eye. Or maybe it’s just because Louis has spent the last few months getting to know a ghost, falling for what he’d thought was a dead man, only to find out that he’s _real_ and he’s alive and he’s currently on the hospital, hooked up to a bunch of machines and fighting for his _life_.

He clears his throat. “Um, Grimshaw,” he says. Tries to contain the waver in his voice. “If you don’t mind me asking…who’s this?”

He knows. He knows who it is. But hearing it said out loud makes it _real_ , and Louis—

Louis needs that confirmation.

“Oh, that’s Harry,” Nick replies, and just hearing the name makes Louis’ pulse quicken, makes him itch to do something, _anything_. To touch him, to see if he’s actually here—tangible and real and _solid_. “Harry Styles. He’s my best mate and Anne’s son.”

 _Harry Styles_. That’s Harry’s name, his _full_ name. “What happened to him?”

“He got into a car accident.” It’s Anne who speaks this time, and when Louis turns to look at her, she’s got a sad expression on her face. The exact same one Harry gets, Louis realizes, when he’s feeling glum or upset or when he’s just not feeling well. “He was driving home a year ago, and he got hit in an intersection. He’s been in a coma ever since.”

And it’s like—everything clicks into place with a snap, pieces of the puzzle forming into the bigger picture. Harry’s real and alive and strapped to a hospital bed; Harry’s got a last name and a best mate and a mum; Harry’s was in a car accident and is in a coma and has probably got a _life_ that got put on hold.

Louis’ head spins at the onslaught of information.

“Oh yeah,” Nick adds, almost as an afterthought. “You know the flat Corden wants you to sell? That’s actually his.”

. . .

Louis ends up staying until Nick leaves, which isn’t that long—it’d been another ten minutes until Nick had said his goodbyes, claiming to have an early day tomorrow. Louis says his goodbyes to Anne, follows Nick through the maze of corridors. Tries not to trip over his own feet as he walks, his mind chanting over and over: _Harry’s alive Harry’s alive Harry’s alive_.

“So that’s why,” Louis says, when they’re back at the lobby. Nick looks at him questioningly. “Why you didn’t want to sell the flat.”

Nick shrugs. He looks a bit uneasy, which is a first—for as long as Louis has known Nick, he’s always been the type to make himself comfortable in whatever situation, has always been able to find himself a niche. “He’d had it for two years,” he replies. “It was his first home and he loved that flat like nothing else. He’d picked out all the furnishings and the décor, and he was so proud of it.”

Nick’s eyes are far away, clearly reminiscing. “We spent a lot of time in that flat, just drinking and laughing during the evenings, talking about life. So it was weird, you know, when Anne had gotten a lawyer to put it on the market and James had asked me to come and sell it. Like, I’ve slept in that flat countless times. I can’t bloody sell it.” He cracks a smile. “And then people started reporting that the flat was a little strange and it was just easier to jump on the bandwagon, say it was haunted.”

Louis resists the urge to say _but it is_. To tell him that the spirit of his dead best mate lives within those walls. “But why is she selling it?” He asks instead. “Couldn’t she just, I don’t know, keep it until he wakes up?”

And it’s quick, so quick, the way Nick’s expression falls. “We don’t know if he’s going to wake up,” he says.

And that’s.

“What?” Louis manages to croak out, his heart kicking up in his chest, panic flooding in his veins. “What do you mean you don’t know if he’s going to wake up?”

Because…Harry has to wake up, doesn’t he? He _has_ to. He’s got family and friends waiting on him, a life outside the confines of both the hospital room and his own flat. He’s got a job he probably needs to go to or a car he needs to fix or a pet he needs to take care of. He’s got a future still ahead of him and he’s got _Louis_ , who’s fallen arse over teakettle for him. Who wants to touch him, hold his hand for much longer. Kiss him, even.

Nick looks at him sadly. “That’s why I had to leave early today,” he tells Louis. “Anne called me. Said that he’s been getting weaker and weaker. The doctors say it’s organ failure. Like his organs are just…slowly shutting down of their own volition. And they don’t know why.”

Louis takes a breath, and then another one. And then another one, to stave off what feels to be the beginnings of a panic attack. “How long does he have?”

Nick shakes his head. “I don’t know, two weeks maybe? They’re doing all they can right now, and they _think_ they can delay it, but,” Nick shakes his head, “they might not be able to fully stop it.”

There should be a word, Louis thinks, for feeling two contradictory things simultaneously, for its juxtaposition and the contrast between them. In the span of an hour, Louis has both found and lost Harry; in the span of an hour, everything’s changed. Sixty minutes—the usual length of time for a fucking showing—and suddenly everything’s changed, the stakes getting higher and Louis’ measly seed of hope getting smaller.

“Two weeks,” he finds himself saying. “That’s a good amount of time. He could still recover.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “Maybe. I mean, I _hope_ , but—” he blows out a breath, and Louis sees his shoulders shake, kind of like he’s on the verge of collapsing, “—we also have to start considering the worst case scenario.”

 _The worst case scenario_. It’d be Harry dying, in this hospital, without ever opening his eyes, without ever seeing the people who love him, who he loves, one last time. The worst case scenario is Louis never getting to hold Harry the way he wants to, never getting to see him live his life. Never getting to see the way his face lights up when Louis brings him flowers, or that private smile, the one he reserves just for Louis.

Because Louis only had Harry’s ghost. And should Harry die, he assumes that Harry’s ghost will disappear as well, fade into oblivion like something that’s never been there at all. The only reason why Harry had a ghost, Louis realizes, is because he was caught in this limbo, right in between life and death, and now that he’s veering closer to death his ghost is fading as well, each passing beep from the machine taking Harry farther and farther away.

But Nick doesn’t know, doesn’t know of Louis’ feelings for this boy in a coma, doesn’t know that Louis had went and fallen for this same boy’s spirit. So he looks up at the ceiling, at the bright hospital lights and its high ceilings. “Yeah,” he says, through a lump in his throat. “Yeah, I get that.”

. . .

He spends the rest of the tube ride home googling Harry Styles, trying his best to consume every bit of information regarding the car accident. It’s much easier to find something now that he’s got a last name—a handful of articles pop up, some social media profiles and news articles about his car crash.

Harry, he finds out, is twenty-five years old, from Holmes Chapel, Cheshire. He’s got a sister named Gemma and a cat named Dusty, both of whom feature prominently on his Instagram page. He’s a songwriter in the music industry—he doesn’t really sing, but he writes, sells his work to other artists. A few of the songs he’d written are pretty popular, and Louis recognizes a bunch of them from the radio, from a film he’d watched a year ago. He’d been driving home last November from a small industry dinner, at around two in the morning, when a drunk driver came out of nowhere and crashed into him.

Something wraps around his chest, squeezes until he can’t get enough air, until he’s trembling, fingers slipping all over his phone. It takes him a moment to realize that it’s panic—in the hospital, Harry is dying; in a gorgeous London flat, Harry is fading. Both events correlating, probably—the slow decline of Harry’s health equivalent to the slow disappearance of Harry’s spirit.

And it’s just. Harry had been alive, all this time, heart beating and fighting for his life, and Louis had just never bothered to look for him, just assumed that seeing his ghost meant that he’d died and was buried six feet under.

Louis is so, _so_ stupid.

He’s still shaking when he gets to Harry’s, his hands trembling so hard that it takes him three tries to unlock the door. “Harry?” He calls, the instant he has one foot inside, toeing off his shoes haphazardly and dumping his jacket on the floor.

It takes a minute, but Harry appears. “Yeah?” He asks, and Louis ignores the way his heart splinters at the sight of him, so fucking _translucent_ —at this point, he’s already a bit difficult to see, features fading. He’s still Harry, but he’s losing details quickly; Louis can no longer see the mole on the right side of his face, can no longer see the signs of the stubble around his jaw.

“Louis?” There’s a thread of concern laced in Harry’s voice. “What’s wrong? You’re crying.”

Louis hadn’t even realized he was. He reaches up, brushes the wetness beneath his eyelids. Takes a breath, finds that he can’t—his lungs unable to expand to get enough air.

“Lou?” One of Harry's hands brushes against Louis’ like a light breeze. He’s not tangible, but somehow the movement grounds him, calms him down, enough that he’s able to get words out.

“I found you.”

Harry frowns. “What?”

“I found you,” Louis repeats louder. “You—you’re _dying_.”

There’s a pause wherein Louis thinks Harry doesn’t understand what he’s just said. But then Harry’s eyes widen and his face pales, and he’s pinning Louis with an intense gaze.

“Wh-what?” He says. “Louis, what—”

“You’re in the hospital.” The words spill faster out of him now, like he needs to get everything out immediately. “In a—in a coma. I went there to meet Nick and there you were, lying on the bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines. Your full name is Harry Edward Styles, your mum’s name is Anne and your sister’s name is Gemma, your best mate is fucking Nick Grimshaw, and you’ve got a heartbeat but you’re _dying_.”

It probably hadn’t been the best way to break the news to Harry, but Louis just. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t know how to, not when they’ve got a slim two week window to ensure Harry’s ghost gets back into his body, to ensure Harry wakes up from his coma.

Harry’s face is as white as a sheet. “Dying?” He asks. One of his hands spasms; opens then clenches into a fist. “In a…coma?”

Louis nods. “You were in a car accident, about a year ago,” he says. “Your body went into a coma. And somehow, _somehow_ , your spirit ended up here. But they’re still connected, somehow. Because now that your body is dying, your spirit is getting weaker too.”

“That’s—” Harry shakes his head. “That’s insane, Louis. The world doesn’t work like that.”

“It’s the only explanation.” Louis is aware of how crazy he’s sounds, but. It was _Harry_ he’d seen on that hospital bed, and it’s Harry standing in front of him right now. Two sides of the same coin, the physical and the metaphysical, separated by miles. “Because _you’re_ Harry Styles, and I—”

He breaks off, pulling his phone out from his back pocket and unlocking it. It’s still open on Harry’s Instagram page, and he taps on photo, holds it up to Harry. “See, look.”

It’s one of the more recent photos on his Instagram, probably one of the last ones he’d posted before the accident. Harry, barefoot and sat on a chair somewhere—dressed in a vintage Britney Spears shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. He’s got a guitar on his lap, and he’s looking a little bit past the camera, as if listening to someone speak.

 _Writing_ , the caption reads. Short and succinct.

Harry stares at the photo for so long that he goes cross-eyed with it. “That’s me..?” He says, his tone lilting up in the end. He reaches out, as if to take the phone from Louis. “I’m…Harry Styles…?”

“You are,” Louis confirms. He scrolls Harry’s Instagram, lets Harry drink his fill of the photos he’d taken, of the friends he’d had. Harry’s hand shakes minutely when Louis gets to a selfie of Harry, his mum, and his sister, all grinning at the camera and sporting matching dimples.

When Harry speaks, his voice is low. “That’s them.”

“Pardon?”

“The two girls who were in the flat when I first woke up like this,” he explains. “The ones who were crying. That’s them.”

Louis swallows. “Your mum, Anne,” he says. “And your sister, Gemma.”

“My mum,” Harry repeats. “And my sister.” He takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising from the effort. “I’m—I don’t know them, Louis.”

And Louis’ heart breaks anew, but his resolve hardens. “That’s why,” he says. Puts as much conviction in his tone as he can. “That’s why we’re going to try and save you.”

That makes Harry look up sharply from Louis’ phone, blinking at him. “What?”

“We’re going to try and save you.”

“How? You said so yourself, I’m _dying_.”

“I don’t know,” Louis says. “But I’ll find a way.”

“Louis—”

“I’ll find a way,” Louis reiterates. Because there _must_ be a way. Louis refuses to lose Harry—not now, and not like this.

Harry regards him for a moment, emotions flitting through his face so quick that Louis can’t catch them. Eventually, he speaks. “Okay,” he says, and it sounds the tiniest bit hopeful. “Okay.

. . .

Finding out Harry is alive gives Louis a bit of hope. Not much, but just enough to think that maybe, just maybe they still have a chance of saving him. He’s still got a body and he’s still got a heartbeat, after all. Before this, Louis was working with far less.

But two weeks. Two fucking _weeks_.

“How in _hell_ are we supposed to wake a coma patient up?” Liam asks, bewildered. “That’s not medically possible, right?”

“It isn’t,” Niall replies. “If it was, it’d be on WikiHow.”

“If it _was_ ,” Zayn cuts in before Niall and Liam can spiral into another discussion about the credibility of WikiHow, “the doctors would’ve already done it. As it is, it’s been almost a year and he’s still in a coma.”

“And now we have two weeks left,” Louis says. “Two fucking weeks.”

That’s fourteen days; that’s three hundred and thirty six hours. Twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes. No matter how much bigger the number gets, no matter how small Louis breaks it down, it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough.

“We need to find a way to get his soul back into his body,” Louis says. “Maybe, just maybe, it’ll wake him up.”

“But _how_?” Niall asks. “Harry can’t leave the flat. And it’s not as if we can just _take_ his body from the hospital.”

Louis opens his mouth, about to protest, but Liam interrupts. “Don’t even think about it, Louis,” he says, giving Louis a glare. “We are not sneaking in the hospital and stealing his body. We’d get arrested. Besides, he’s got family that cares for him, doesn’t he? I don’t think it would be fair to them if we just _stole_ him.”

“But we’re losing him, Liam,” Louis says, a little desperately. “ _I’m_ losing him and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“How about jogging his memory?” Zayn suggests. “Maybe if he started remembering things, his soul will go back into his body and he’ll wake up.”

“But how are we going to do that?” Liam asks.

Zayn shrugs. “Ask him questions? Maybe something we say will trigger something in his brain, somehow. What do you think, Louis?”

Simultaneously, all three of them turn to face Louis. Frantic anticipation runs through Louis’ veins, spreads to the top of his head, the tips of his fingers.

Louis takes a deep breath, lets it all out in a whoosh. “It could work,” he says slowly. “Maybe. “What have we got to lose?”

. . .

There’s a blank look on Harry’s face when Zayn explains the plan, expression wiped so clean that Louis can’t even tell what he’s thinking. He seems to be listening, though, because he nods once, decisively, before scooting closer to Louis, his hand finding its favourite perch on Louis’ thigh.

“Maybe,” Harry says. “We can try it.”

“Okay, so,” Niall squints at his phone, at probably where Harry’s Instagram page is pulled up—the only thing they have that gives them insight to what Harry was like when he was awake. “Your sister’s name is Gemma. Gemma Styles. Tell us about her.”

There’s a pause. “Her name is Gemma?” He starts. “She’s…my sister.”

“How old is she? When’s her birthday?”

“She’s…” And here Harry’s forehead wrinkles, like he’s thinking deep and hard about it. “I don’t know. I genuinely don’t.”

“Okay, let’s try someone else,” Zayn interjects. “How about your mum? Anything you know about your mum?”

“Only the things Louis told me,” Harry answers. “Her name is Anne, I guess.”

“Favourite food? Favourite colour?”

Harry’s eyes grow a touch sad, and he shakes his head. “No.”

“How about your best mate?” Liam asks. “Or your cat? How about the songs you wrote? Anything about them at all?”

This time, frustration flashes through Harry’s face. “I don’t…know,” he says, his voice raw. “I don’t know anything _anything_.”

From over the top of Harry’s head, Zayn gives Louis a look—a sad one, one that tells Louis that he doesn’t think this is working at all. Louis takes a deep breath, lets it all out. “That’s okay, love,” he says, making his voice as gentle as he possibly can. “We’ll…we’ll try something else.”

. . .

“Harry likes music, yeah?” Niall asks. “And he’s a songwriter. So maybe if we play him some of the songs he’s written, he might remember something.”

“Well,” Louis says, “we can try.”

. . .

It doesn’t work. Harry spends most of the afternoon staring up at the ceiling, the same blank expression on his face. When Niall asks him questions, stuff like _what were you thinking when you were writing this_ , or _how did this song make you feel_ , Harry just blinks at him, shakes his head.

“I didn’t recognize any of them,” he answers. “So I really couldn’t tell you.”

. . .

“His body and soul’s still connected, right?” Liam says, thinking. “I really don’t think we should steal his body, but maybe, just maybe, if you could get to his body somehow, play him something that means something to him, he might respond. I read that coma patients sometimes respond to music.”

“Do they?” Louis asks. “Well, I can try to get in. But what do I play him?”

Liam shrugs. “Britney Spears?”

. . .

The nurse at the station squints up at Louis, her pen hovering above her clipboard. “Who’re you here to see?”

“Harry Styles?”

She nods, flipping through the clipboard. “Name?” She asks him.

“Uh, Louis Tomlinson.”

She runs a finger down the side of the clipboard, clearly searching for something. Her brow furrows minutely, then she’s doing it again, but this time, slowly. When she speaks, there’s a suspicious tone in her voice. “Sorry dear, you’re not on his visitors’ list. Who did you say you were again?”

Louis swallows, feeling a little nervous. “Louis Tomlinson,” he says again. “I’m, uh, a friend of Harry’s.”

“I see.” She scribbles something down on the side of the clipboard. “Well, since I can’t get the patient to confirm who you are, I’m going to need one of his next of kin to verify that you are indeed a friend. Like his sister, maybe? Or his mum?” She shrugs. “Hospital protocol. You know how it is.”

And Louis had known this’d happen—had known that hospitals could be a little strict when it came to people visiting their patients, but he’d hoped, somehow, that he’d be able to slip through. But he can’t, and he doesn’t think he can just ask Anne to let him in—he doubts she’d believe him if he says that he’s a friend of Harry’s.

“I see,” he says, and his tongue feels thick in his mouth. “I’ll just, um, I’ll come back next time.”

. . .

“Have we got any other ideas, lads?” Louis asks. “We’ve got a week left.”

Nothing they’d done had worked; everyday, Harry had grown more and more transparent, little bits of him lost to the wind. Louis had almost broken down crying just the other day when he’d realized he could no longer read one of Harry’s tattoos—the once bold _MARY_ that adorned the inside of his arm now reduced to a mess of black, unintelligible shapes.

They’ve only got a week—seven days—left. And it’s all Louis can do not to give in to the rising panic, to throw all semblance of composure into the wind and just cry.

There’s a heavy pause where Zayn, Liam, and Niall exchange glances, faces unsure. Louis opens his mouth, about to ask what they’re thinking, when Zayn beats him to it. “I don’t want to be like this, Louis,” Zayn’s voice is low, comforting, as if he’s speaking to a spooked animal. “But maybe there’s nothing we _can_ do about it.”

And in his chest, Louis’ heart stops. “Wh-what?”

“I mean, we’re still going to do everything we can to help,” it’s Liam who pipes up this time. “But maybe we should start considering the possibility that Harry…might not make it.”

 _Might not make it_. Liam words ring loud and hollow in his ears, reverberating in the walls of his head, and for a moment, Louis hates him, hates everyone, hates everything in this stupid fucking world in this stupid fucking universe. _Might not make it_ , Liam says, as if Louis’ being far too optimistic; _might not make it_ , Liam says, as if Harry’s slow death is something he’d just carelessly chosen to forget. _Might not make it_ , Liam says, as if Louis hasn’t been considering that possibility for _days_ , staying up all night running it through his head in the hopes that he’d missed something, that he’d somehow turn over a pebble and uncover a solution that’ll fix all this.

Because Harry isn’t _his_ , not the way he’d thought he was—Harry is his mum’s and his sister’s and his cat’s and his best mate’s and all the people in the fucking world’s, everyone who’d known him when he was whole, before the accident. Louis only had his ghost.

His hands are trembling. He clenches them into fists, digs his fingernails into his palm until his knuckles are white. “What should I do, then?”

“You’ve got a week left,” Zayn says, and his brown eyes are sad. “Maybe just make the most of it.”

. . .

There are no Google results for _how to wake a coma patient up_.

There are no Google results for _how to put someone’s ghost back in their body_.

There are no Google results for _how to save the soul of a dying man._

There are no Google results for _how to get over the absence of someone who’s still there_.

. . .

Niall shows up at Louis’ office a few minutes before Louis’ set to get off work, looking a little ruffled.

“I need your help,” he says, by way of greeting. “It’s an emergency.”

Louis holds up a finger at him, finishes the email he’d been writing. “What is it?” He asks the instant he presses send, and goes about shutting down his computer, closing all his open windows and logging out of his email.

“Liam asked me to get cake,” Niall begins. “And I forgot.”

Louis pauses as he’s turning off the monitor. “So go get him cake,” he says. He doesn’t hide the _duh_ in his tone. “Why are you bothering me about it?”

“Because I can’t remember what kind of cake he wants me to get,” Niall replies.

“And what makes you think I would know?”

“I don’t know,” Niall says. “But two heads are always better than one.” He presses his palms together, juts out his lower lip. “Please help me get cake.”

“No,” Louis says. “I have to go to Harry—”

“You can go to Harry’s after,” Niall interrupts. “I’ll come with you, even. But please, I really need your help. Liam’s going to murder me.”

“Liam’s always on the verge of murdering us all,” Louis mutters, but he lets himself get dragged away anyway. “I don’t know why it’s anything new.”

. . .

The patisserie that Niall drags him to is one that Louis really likes—a place he likes to go to when he wants to grab a sweet treat with his tea. Niall pulls him all the way to the cakes displayed in a glass case; he stares at them for all of twenty seconds before turning to Louis.

“Which flavour?” He asks Louis.

“What?”

“Which flavour do you think is best?”

Louis blinks at him. “I don’t know,” he replies, a little confused. “Which flavour did Liam want?”

Niall shrugs, unbothered. “I can’t remember.”

“Then call him and ask.” Louis pulls out his phone, already unlocking it to dial Liam, but Niall swats his hand away.

“No, don’t,” Niall says, as Louis’ phone clatters to the ground. Louis flips him the bird as he bends down to pick it up, but Niall ignores it. “We can figure this out.” Niall pauses. “Which one would you want?”

“What?”

“Like. Which cake would you want to eat?”

Honestly, Louis has no idea what the fuck is up with Niall today. “Why are you asking me to pick?” He asks. “Why don’t you just pick a random one?”

“Because I trust your opinion,” Niall says, turning back to the cakes. “Besides, you’re always here, aren’t you? Which did you like best?”

“I mean, I’m not here _that_ often,” Louis replies, but he turns to look at the cakes on the case. They all look delicious—each of them decorated to perfection. “Maybe the salty caramel one? But I have no fucking idea if that’s something Liam would want.” Liam had always tended to gravitate to the more basic flavours, such as chocolate or vanilla. “Why the fuck does Liam want a whole cake anyway?”

Niall shrugs. “Beats me,” he says. He’s not looking at Louis, so Louis can’t see the expression on his face, can’t see if he’s lying or not. “But alright.” In a quick motion, he turns around, calls the attention of the person behind the counter. “Hey, can we get a salty caramel cake?”

The cake gets boxed up with surprising efficiency, and after checking that it’s the right one, Niall pays for it, sliding a debit card over the counter. He hands Louis the cake once he’s got the receipt, and then bodily pushes him out the door.

“Harry’s right?” He asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer; just continues pushing him to the nearest tube station.

Louis holds the cake carefully, but lets himself get pushed. “Why are _you_ going to Harry’s?”

“Because he’s my friend?” Niall answers. “Because he’s a good person and an amazing ghost?”

Louis digs his heels in, whirls around. Niall’s got his phone in his hand, texting someone and immediately, he hides it behind his back, gives Louis a winning smile.

Louis squints at him suspiciously. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“What do you mean?” Niall says brightly. “I tell you everything.” From behind him, Louis hears his phone buzz. “Harry’s now?”

Louis glares at him. “Don’t think this is over, Horan,” he says, and whirls around, this time walking like a civilized person to the tube station. “I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

Niall, amazingly, manages to stay tightlipped the entire ride to Harry’s, talking circles around Louis’ questions and spending the rest of his time on his phone. Louis tries to take a peek, but Niall just pushes him away with a hand, glares at him.

“Stop trying to read my sexts,” he says, on the third time Louis tries to read over his shoulder.

Louis stops trying after that.

Niall only takes the cake back from Louis when they’re standing in front of the door, and that’s only because he doesn’t have a key to Harry’s flat. Louis grumbles and tries to fish them out—they seem to have made their home at the bottom of his work bag—but he eventually grabs them and unlocks the door.

In a split second, the lights turn on, some party poppers go off, far too noisy for the calibre of people living in this flat. “Surprise!” Four voices yell, Niall’s the loudest and right into Louis’ ear.

“Ow!” Louis yells, shoving Niall away. Niall cackles, and Louis takes a few steps into the flat, which has been terribly decorated—balloons and streamers everywhere, confetti on the ground, a a giant banner that reads _Happy Birthday!_ with the word _almost_ scribbled in Sharpie between the two words. “What’s all this?”

In the flat, Liam and Zayn are standing on either ends of the couch, holding popped party poppers and wearing party hats set at a wonky angle. But Harry’s the one Louis can’t take his eyes off; Harry, who’s standing under the giant banner grinning so wide it looks like his face might split in half.

“It’s almost your birthday!” Niall tells him, as if that explains everything. “It was Harry’s idea.” He squeezes past Louis, holds up the cake he and Louis bought. “And I got the cake! Told you I would, _Liam_.”

Liam rolls his eyes. “Nice fucking save, Niall,” he says, but there’s a smile on his face, and he’s closing the distance between them to take it from Niall. “I’ll put it in the fridge.”

“No, Liam,” Zayn disagrees, stepping to take the cake from Liam. “Just leave it on the table, we’ll blow out candles in a bit.”

“But it’s going to melt!”

“It won’t melt in _ten minutes_ —"

In the midst of all this, Harry has drifted forward, comes to stop right in front of Louis. “Happy birthday, Lou,” he says, still grinning. His dimples, normally present, have been reduced, almost completely smoothed over by whatever power is taking him away, little by little. “You like your surprise party?”

Louis looks around—at the messy flat, at his three best friends still bickering about the goddamn cake, back to this boy standing in front of him, details fading, but still the one thing Louis’ ever wanted. “I’ve had better,” he manages to deadpan, past the painful clenching of his heart. “But my birthday isn’t until Christmas Eve.”

“I remember,” Harry replies. His eyes are a bright shade of green. “But I just didn’t want to miss it.”

And it’s so casual, the way Harry says it—like he just won’t be in the city for Louis’ birthday, like he’ll just be going on a trip and coming back. But Louis knows better, knows that it’s a precaution—that Harry planned this, Harry organized this, Harry did this, simply because he doesn’t think he’ll still be around at that time. He’s slipping away from Louis so quickly, turning to dust, to atmosphere; and in a private hospital outside of London, the lines of Harry’s heartbeat crest, then descend.

It’s too much to think about. Louis swallows the lump in his throat and grins, before going to harass Liam for some alcohol.

And so here’s how the party goes:

They stay in the kitchen, partly because they don’t want to stain any of Harry’s fancy furniture, partly because it’ll be easier to clean up. There’s food and so Louis eats, there’s alcohol so Louis gets spectacularly, stupidly drunk. He eats and he drinks and he laughs and he blows out his candles on his semi-melted cake, cuts it up into huge slices and doles it out to everyone. He makes Liam do the worm and Zayn do the Macarena, he beats Niall in Go Fish and has Harry pass through the cake to see if maybe he might be able to taste it, and all the while he does his best not to feel the sadness creeping up his chest, does his best not to let it overwhelm him.

Harry stays by his side the whole night, his presence comforting despite his incorporeality, watches as Zayn and Liam try their best to get each other drunk, laughs as Niall shows off his ability to shed off all his clothes in five seconds. Harry watches and Harry laughs and Harry is _fading_ , and Harry might never have this again, and Louis wishes this were a photograph, a moment frozen in time, wishes he could stay here with Harry and three of his best mates forever.

(But later, when Zayn, Liam, and Niall have passed out on top of each other, Louis stays up, its beside Harry on the ground. Curls into himself and cries—for the boy he’s losing in bits and pieces, for the boy he wants but can never have. For the boy he’s wholly, terribly in love with, the same boy he wants to save but doesn’t know how to.)

. . .

“And so they called me,” Zayn finishes. He’s beaming softly, sat on the floor of Harry’s flat. “Said they wanted to showcase my work. An exhibition in the new year, lads, that’s what I’m getting for Christmas.”

“Oh my God, Zayn, that’s _amazing_ ,” Liam gushes, enthused. “That’s really fucking amazing, mate.”

Zayn laughs. “I know,” he says, his voice wavering. “God, I still can’t believe it. I have so much I need to do—gotta make sure all my art’s up to par, gotta make sure I got enough pieces to showcase, you guys have to drop by on opening night, okay—”

“Definitely,” Niall agrees, grinning so wide. He raises his beer bottle up, like a toast “We’ll be there every day if you want us to. But first we gotta go out and _celebrate_.” His grin falters, and Louis sees his eyes slide to him, to Harry; who’s listening to everything with a small, sad twist to his mouth.

“Eventually,” Niall tacks on a little belatedly.

The topic shifts quickly after that—Niall talking about something dumb that happened at work this afternoon—but Louis’ brain snags on that little detail, on that little moment. He realizes, all of a sudden, that he’d only had four months with Harry in total, realizes, in a blink of an eye , that he’s got a little more than a week left. Realizes, in startling clarity, that he wants _this_ forever, but Harry is fading as quickly as Louis’ heart beats nowadays and forever starts to feel like a concept further and further away.

“Are you okay?” Harry’s voice is soft, worried; worming its way into Louis’ thoughts. Even the way he speaks is different now, he laughs slower, keeps his voice low. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Louis says, even as his brain screams _everything_ and _please_ and _I don’t want you to go_. “I’m fine.”

He’s fine, except for the fact that Harry is dying twice, simultaneously in a flat and in the hospital;

He’s fine, except for the way his heart feels like it’s slowly being torn at the seams as Harry loses details—the birthmark on his wrist is gone, the _Johnny-Joey-Deedee-Tommy_ on his shirt blurred together into indecipherable shapes;

He’s fine, except for the fact that _I should’ve searched for him I should’ve found him I should’ve tried harder and I don’t know what to do—_

“Are you sure?” Harry asks, because he’s wondrous and perfect and kind and even close to death, he still finds himself concerned for Louis, about Louis. “What can I do?”

 _Stay_ , Louis thinks, but he can’t say that because Harry can’t, Harry doesn’t know how to. This is the cosmic power they’re up against--the universe laying down the law, taking away the bureaucratic error that somehow gave him Harry.

So Louis doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head. Rests his head against his knees and lets his best mates’ voices drift over him, like something out of a dream.

. . .

“D’you remember,” Louis asks Harry. They’re sat by the piano, Harry running his fingers on the keys dully. “The first time we’d played the piano together, you tried to teach me a song?”

Harry clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “I remember.”

It’s clearly a lie. Louis doesn’t call him out on it.

. . .

“This flat is just _perfect,_ Louis,” Leonard’s wife, Barbara says. Her eyes are sparkling, as she takes it all in—the walls Louis’ memorized, the furniture that has seen him at his most vulnerable. “I think we’ll take it.”

And a few months ago Louis would’ve relished in those words, would’ve beamed up at them and immediately pulled out the contract and pen, would’ve said _let’s seal the deal, then?_ and point to the dotted line. But right now Louis feels nothing but slowly dawning horror, his heart beating loudly against his too-small ribcage, and he can do nothing but look at Harry, who’s far more transparent now than he was four months ago, who’s watching the exchange with something that looks a lot like resignation on his face.

“Three days,” he hears himself say. Prays that three days will be enough time to save Harry, to stop him from fading; to get him out of this limbo and back into the real world. “Give me three days to get all the paperwork fixed.”

. . .

After the door closes behind them, Louis stares at Harry, sat on the couch. Drinks him in, takes in the curve of his spine, the bow of his head. This is all Harry is now, all blurry shapes and lines and colours, details missing. Gone.

And everything’s all irony, all situational irony, because—

Because Louis had wanted to sell the flat so badly, and now that he has, he doesn’t want to anymore;

Because Louis had hated Harry, hated his cheeky grin and his stupid quips, and then fell headfirst into his afterglow;

Because Louis had wanted Harry gone so bad that he’d raged about it, and now that he’s leaving all Louis wants is for him to _stay_.

“They won’t get it,” Louis tells Harry, and is surprised by the ferocity in his voice.

Harry’s expression is hard to read—he’s harder to read now, simply because he’s difficult to see. “They seemed very lovely, Louis.”

“They were,” Louis agrees, “but they won’t get it.”

In the setting sun, light shines through the bay windows and, a few them shine through Harry, before touching the hardwood floor. Harry, Louis finds, is made of dust particles and light beams, and it cleaves Louis’ heart straight in two because he used to be more than that, used to be humanlike and semi-tangible.

In the setting sun, Harry looks up at him, the green of his eyes dull. “I’m dying, Louis.”

Louis shakes his head. “That’s not true,” he says.

“It is,” Harry says, and there’s resignation in his voice. He lifts a hand and immediately Louis mirrors his movement, presses his palm to Harry’s. “I’m fading. And in a hospital somewhere, I’m dying.” He takes a breath, lets it out in a quiet exhale. “And I think, maybe I should.”

And that’s.

“Don’t you dare say that, Harry Styles,” Louis says, and if he sounds a little desperate, he doesn’t care. “Don’t you fucking _dare_.”

But Harry has always been stubborn to a fault, has always been steadfast in his own beliefs. “I think,” he continues, “I’ve been here long enough.”

“I— _no_ , Harry,” Louis says, his tongue tripping over the words. “You haven’t—you’re still _alive_ , alive and breathing and you can’t walk away from life just like that. You just can’t.” 

“It’s not much of a life,” Harry says, “when I’m just lying comatose on a bed.”

“But what about your mum?” Louis asks, frantic. “Your sister? Nick?” _Me,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say.

 _Long enough_ , Harry had said, when Louis had found him only four months ago. He’d wanted more. He _wants_ more.

“I don’t...I don’t remember them, Louis,” Harry replies. “I don’t remember anything. You’re the clearest thing in the world to me, Louis but I—” he shakes his head. “I don’t know if it’s strong enough.”

One of his hands reach up, settles on the side of Louis’ face. “You’re everything to me, you know that?” Harry continues. “I told you before that it felt like you’re a part of me and it _does_ , it still does.” The corner of his mouth ticks up. “You’ve helped me remember how it feels to have a heartbeat.”

Fuck him. “Fuck you,” Louis says. “Fuck you. You’re an arsehole, an absolute arsehole, and you’re breaking my heart, you know that?”

“I know,” Harry says. His voice is sad. “I’m sorry we only had this. I wish it were longer. I wish it were more.”

“Then _stay_ ,” Louis begs, the words tumbling out of him tinged in desperation. “Just fucking _stay_. We’ll—we’ll figure something out, avenues we haven’t explored—just please, _please_ stay.”

The curl of Harry’s lip is a soft, sad thing; his eyes a lacklustre shade of green. “But I don’t think I can,” he says gently. He’s looking at Louis like this is the very last time he can, like this is the very last time he’s allowed.

And Louis stops fighting it, lets his tears fall. “I love you,” he says, and it’s the last thing he has, it’s all he has left. “I love you, and please just, _stay_.”

Harry lets out a deep breath, like Louis has just taken him by surprise. “I love you, too,” he says, the words falling from his lips easily, as if they’ve always been there, balanced at the tip of his tongue. “I love you so fucking much. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” He shrugs. “You just came a little too late, I think.” 

It’s too much. “Fuck you,” Louis says. Is all he’s able to say, as the remnants of his heart splinters, then shatters, the pieces falling somewhere by his feet. And then he’s falling onto his knees, unable to breathe, his vision blurred with tears, and he cries and he cries while Harry does his best to hold him, whispering _I love you_ over and over like a prayer, like a mantra.

Like a goodbye.

. . .

Selfridge’s is the last place Louis ever expected to find a psychic, but there she is, sitting behind a table, reading a book and munching on an apple. She doesn’t look anything like how Louis expected her to; rather than the long flowing robes and the crystal ball, she’s dressed in a t-shirt and skinny jeans.

It’s a lot more modern than Louis expected it to be.

Louis thinks for a moment about leaving; he hasn’t been spotted anyway, and this place doesn’t look like it offers the kind of help he needs. But then the girl looks up from her book, locking eyes with Louis, and Louis feels the air around him change, shift.

“You seem to have quite the dilemma,” the girl says. An eyebrow raised, she shuts her book, offers the seat in front of her to Louis.

Weirder things, Louis has to tell himself as he makes his way further inside, sits down on the proffered chair. Weirder things have happened in the last few months.

The instant he’s seated, she steeples her fingers, pins him with a gaze. “I’d ask you to draw a card,” she starts, a little wryly, “but something tells me you’re not here for a trajectory reading.”

“I’m—no, that’s not, no,” Louis replies. “Actually, I’m not here for me. I’m here for a friend.” He hesitates. “You’re…Jayne, right? Kim Kardashian’s psychic?  
  


“I’ve read for Kim, yes,” she confirms, a small smile tugging up her lips. “And you are…?”

“Louis,” Louis provides. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

Jayne looks at him, _really_ looks at him. Louis can’t tell if her eyes are green or blue, but they’re piercing, knowing, making him feel like he’s been laid bare, all his secrets face up on the table in front of them.

“It’s really quite an impossible situation, isn’t it?” Is what she says, after a few minutes.

Louis’ a bit thrown. “What?”

“The one you’ve found yourself in,” she elaborates. “Everything’s just slipping away, isn’t it?”

It’s rather vague, but somehow it hits close to home. “Well, sort of,” Louis says, a little uncomfortable. “My…my—”

“Lover,” Jayne supplies.

 _Lover?_ Louis’ not quite sure how he feels about that. He doesn’t know if he’d call Harry his lover, doesn’t know if that’s the right term. Doesn’t know if that’s the right word to encompass what they are to each other; two souls, trying to find each other, two ghosts, drowning in a glass half-empty.

But, maybe. Harry’s something tender, anyway. Tender like a lover, tender like a bruise.

“Right,” he says, instead of all that. Thinks Jayne can read the play of his thoughts on his face, anyway. “He’s…he’s dying, and how do I…how do I—”

“Save him?”

“Yeah. Could you?” He doesn’t know what he’s saying, doesn’t know if he’s making any sense, but Jayne seems to understand anyway.

She blows out a breath. “The thing is, I can’t,” she says gently, her shoulders sagging slightly. “He’s been separated from his body for far too long, and everything’s a bit too delicate now. His physical body isn’t used to _life_ anymore.”

How she knows that, Louis doesn’t know. But Louis decides not to question her. “So what can I do?”

“The only thing I can think of,” she continues, “is to make his own body call his spirit back. Make him _want_ to be alive again. But it’s difficult, because once a body starts shutting down, it starts losing thoughts. Memories. Things that mean something to them, things that made them want to live.” She looks down at her hands. “And then it’s too late."

Louis thinks of Harry, forgetting the few scraps of memories he’d once clung on to, Harry, who’d slowly lost the moments they’d once shared. Harry, who’d whispered half a million _I love you_ ’s in Louis’ ear, every single one of them ringing true in his ears, in his bones, in his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Jayne says. She’s got her eyes downcast, gaze on her hands this time. “I’m really sorry.”

 _I’d never forget you, Louis_ , Harry had promised once. _Feels like you’re a part of me_.

Louis’ brain forms an idea.

He stands up so quick, he topples over the chair, and Jayne’s eyes fly to him, shocked. “I have to go,” he tells her. “I have to—thank you, by the way—I have to try.”

She studies him for a beat, her eyes searching. Then her mouth twists into a small, almost proud smile. “Go,” she says, waving him towards the exit. “Good luck.”

Louis thanks her again, one last time, before running out the door.

. . .

“One last time,” Louis pleads. “Please.”

He doesn’t know if it’s going to work. But _God_ , he has to try.

He looks at Liam, then Niall, then Zayn. All of them looking back at him, expressions highly skeptical, but—

Hopeful. Really hopeful.

And honestly, that’s all Louis needs right now. A little bit of hope.

Zayn clears his throat. “Tell us the plan, then.”

. . .

It’s chaos, when the plan unfolds. Crazy, uncontrollable and absolutely _perfect_.

The nurse is really only half-distracted by Zayn leaning against her station giving her bedroom eyes, but then Liam walks in yelling at Zayn about cheating on him or something and her attention is completely diverted, enough for Louis and Niall to sneak past her station. They pass a few doctors and nurses on their way to Harry’s room, and Louis does his best to keep his head down, to hide his face behind the giant floral arrangement he’s got. Somehow, they pay him no mind, and it’s not long until Louis makes it into Harry’s room, the number _328_ gleaming, beckoning him like a siren.

“Go, Tommo,” Niall urges, and Louis takes a deep breath, pushes open the door to the hospital and lets it fall shut.

It’s still a shock to his system, seeing Harry like this—hooked up to many different machines, a mask over his face. Looking pale and drawn and sickly, a stark contrast to the boy hiding in the walls of the flat, the boy Louis had gotten to know over the last four months. The boy with the witty quips and the terrible jokes and the dimples in his cheeks, the boy Louis had fallen in love with, headfirst and wanting.

The boy Louis wants to _save_.

He takes a seat on the chair, lets his eyes rake over Harry—his curls fanned out on the pillow, the slow rise and fall of his chest. And then, when he’s just about composed himself, just when he feels that he can finally speak without bursting into tears, Louis takes a deep breath, holds it in his lungs. Lets it out in one fell swoop, the air rushing out of his nose mixing with the first word he’d thought to say.

“Hi.”

His voice is barely louder than a whisper, a singular word choked out through the sudden closing of his throat. Louis blinks, tries to will the tears away—it wouldn’t do well to cry. Not now, not yet.

“I’m Louis,” he continues, feeling a bit silly for introducing himself to a coma patient. Harry doesn’t respond, doesn’t so much as stir. “I don’t—I don’t know if you know me. But I know you.”

He pauses. “Or well, a version of you,” he amends. “Your ghost, to be specific.”

“But I guess that’s not exactly you.” His laugh, when it comes out, is a little forced. “So, I guess maybe I don’t know you.”

Around them, the machines beep, stoic and unfeeling. On the table, there are some fresh flowers, its colours washed out under the fluorescent. In the corner, the telly entertains itself with sitcoms, the laugh track playing every few minutes. It sounds ironic.

Everything’s irony. All situational irony.

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” Louis says, as if he could be anything but. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now. A psychic told me that your spirit has been out of your body for too long, and because of it, you’ve forgotten a whole bunch of things. People. Memories. Things that’d make you want to stay alive.”

The words flow easily now. “And I don’t know if you’d remember this,” he continues, “but you—your ghost—told me that you’d never forget me. That it feels like I’m a part of you somehow.” He feels his lips twist into a small almost sardonic smile. “I’m hoping you weren’t lying to me.”

He thinks of Harry and his habit of popping up wherever he can, thinks of the way his eyes twinkle when he’s about to say something witty. Thinks of the myriad of expressions that pass through his face, thinks of the way he laughs and the sound of his voice. Thinks of that one, gentle smile, that one private expression he keeps only for Louis.

“You wanna hear something?” He asks rhetorically. “Zayn once told me—back when I was still trying to get rid of you—that if I want something, I should ask nicely. Apparently, it works for everything in life.”

And then he reaches out, takes Harry’s hand. It’s clammy, but familiar—Louis takes a moment to relish in its tangibility, in its corporeality; the feeling of callouses on fingertips, a palm just on the side of rough. “So this is me, asking nicely. I’m—I love you.” His voice is soft, sincere. “And I know, it sounds kind of dumb, because I fell in love with your ghost, but. It’s true. I love you and I’m sorry I didn’t look for you sooner.”

He closes his eyes, presses a gentle kiss against the back of Harry’s hand, right on his knuckles. “Please,” he whispers into Harry’s skin. “Please, wake up.”

. . .

The next day, Nick Grimshaw calls off work. When Louis texts him to ask why, he doesn’t get a response.

That same day, Louis takes a deep breath and steels himself. Pushes the keys into the lock, listens to the tumblers turn.

The flat looks exactly the same as it did yesterday; the rooms bright and airy, the furniture well-maintained. The hardwood shines under the sunlight streaming from the bay windows, the piano open, white and black keys glinting. It doesn’t look like anything’s changed at all in the last twenty-four hours.

“Harry?” Louis calls.

He gives it a few seconds, but Harry doesn’t appear in front of Louis the way he usually does. He’s not in the kitchen or the bedroom either, both rooms devoid of any stray ghosts wandering around.

Louis’ heart has started hammering in his chest, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Harry?” He tries again, and maybe it’s just a fluke, an error; maybe it’s just taking a while for Harry to come find him. Maybe he’d been distracted by something and just didn’t hear Louis come in.

But Louis knows better, knows Harry like the back of his hand. Knows that Harry would never make Louis wait, would never have trouble hearing Louis to come in. No matter the weather, no matter his mood—it had never taken more than a few seconds for Harry to find him, wherever he is in the flat.

Which just means he isn’t here anymore.

And so Louis closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Sits down on the floor and lets himself cry.

. . .

Just like every year, the New Year’s office party happens on the thirty-first of December.

Louis doesn’t want to go, truly—it’d been a rough few weeks, and he doesn’t think he’s fit for any state of partying. But, as Liam had said on every single text message he’d sent to their group chat, it’s the _New Year_ , which means it’s a day for celebration, for laughs; to leave behind the past and start a new, clean slate.

Plus, as Niall adds after every single one of Liam’s texts, it’s got free food and free booze.

So he goes.

. . .

James has never been one to skimp out on the office party, so the entire office floor is decked out with brightly-coloured streamers and glittery décor, _Happy New Year!_ banners strung up on every corner. There’s _catering_ , and a lot of (quite decent) booze, and Louis suspects that the only reason Zayn, Niall, and Liam were adamant that he go was because they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

“Having fun?” Zayn asks, slinging an arm around him. He’s got his second drink in his other hand and he clinks it against Louis’ half-empty glass. “Oh, come on, that barely looks like it’s been touched."

Louis snorts, quickly taking a sip of his wine. It’s really good wine—James has never been known to buy shitty alcohol for the New Year’s Party, and this year is no exception. “I’m working on it, Z.”

“Are you?” Liam appears right next to Zayn, his own drink newly refilled. His eyes are bright, which means he’s well on his way to drunk. “Usually you’re the one screaming at us to _drink faster, losers_.” He pitches his voice high, as if to mimic Louis.

Louis does _not_ sound like that. “I do _not_ sound like that,” he says haughtily, shoving Liam away. Liam stumbles, but he manages to catch his balance, comes back laughing. “Maybe once in my life, I’d prefer to remember ringing in the New Year.”

It’s been a crazy few months, after all—a whirlwind of weeks and days, each with its own highs and lows. In the last few weeks, Louis’ had his viewpoints changed drastically, had loved and lost and _lived_. A year older, but probably not any wiser, in the way he still clings on to the remnants of Harry he has, the way he still tries to save him, even in his dreams.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d like to relish in these last few moments of the year, take a moment to reflect on the writing on his slate before starting afresh.

Zayn lifts his glass. “Maturity,” he says, sounding as if Louis’d told them he’d just turned eighty. “Forgive us for not wanting to be old.”

“Fuck you,” Louis says, laughing. “Get plastered, I don’t fucking care. Just know that I won’t be the one hauling your sorry arses home.”

“We don’t expect you to.”

There’s a lull after that, the three of them just standing there, grinning at each other. The sound of karaoke drifts over them—there’s someone singing, a rather good rendition of Taylor Swift’s _Lover_ , and Louis’ heart aches at the familiar tune.

“Hey.” Zayn’s watching him, his brown eyes kind. “We love you, you know that?”

Louis smiles. “What, getting sappy on me now, Malik?”

“Just saying. You had a crazy year, Lou.”

“Hopefully the next one is a little kinder.”

“Wait,” Liam interrupts. He’s scanning the crowd, his brow furrowed. “Has anyone seen Niall?”

“Last time I saw him, he said something about signing up for karaoke, but I don’t think he’s at the booth anymore,” Zayn says, craning his head. “Maybe he’s at the bar?”

Louis opens his mouth to interject—probably something along the lines of _I can’t believe you lost him_ —when something barrels straight into his side.

“Louis,” Niall appears, as if summoned. He pulls away, enough so Louis can see his face—the way his cheeks are flushed. He’s breathing hard, his breaths coming in short and hurried, and his eyes are as large as dinner plates. “There’s something you should know—”

But the rest of Niall’s sentence is lost on him, because someone laughs, low and raspy, one that Louis would recognize _anywhere_ , and his eyes are suddenly falling on a familiar figure and the world just.

Stops.

Falls away.

Reorients itself around this boy, this _one boy_ , standing tall and pigeon-toed on the other side of the room, with a head of curly hair and dimples in his cheeks.

 _Harry_ , Louis thinks, and it feels like the wind’s been knocked out from him, feels like his heart is doing somersaults in his chest.

A few weeks ago, Louis had been inconsolable; had cried on the floor of that gorgeous London flat, cried every night after that. A few weeks ago, he’d given up his bonus; had turned all the papers of the flat back to James and told him that he didn’t want to sell it anymore.

And a few weeks ago, Harry had turned to dust, to atmosphere; nothing but his memories and the way his Louis’ beat differently as evidence that that he was here, that it’d actually happened. A few weeks ago, Louis had lost Harry.

Now, though. Now he’s here, stepping off the karaoke stage, grinning in that cheeky familiar way of his, as if the last few months never even happened.

“Oh,” says Zayn’s voice, almost breathless. Louis doesn’t look at him, can’t even _bear_ to take his eyes away from Harry, but he thinks Zayn’s caught sight of him too. “It’s Harry.”

He looks good, Harry. His hair has been styled in some semblance of order, and he’s wearing a brightly patterned red and yellow shirt over some dark jeans. Despite it all, Louis can see the time spent in the hospital in the build of his body; in the bags under his eyes, in the stark angles of his face, in the way the shoulders of the shirt sit a little too loosely.

But there’s absolutely, no doubt about it. That’s Harry. Harry Styles.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Liam’s voice cuts through his thoughts. Louis feels two hands on his shoulder, feels himself being manhandled towards Harry’s direction. “Go to him!”

“Li, I can’t just—”

“Go!” And then he gets shoved unceremoniously, stumbling forward a bit, trying not to spill his drink. He ends up bumping into Luke, who waves his apology off and steps to the side, ushering him forward with a hand on his back.

Somehow, he keeps moving—one foot in front of the other, even as his hands are shaking so hard that his drink might spill. It’s not long until he’s weaved through the people separating them and Harry is close, enough that Louis can see the baby curls on the nape of his neck, the light brown birthmark on his wrist.

He’s saying something to Nick. Louis’ palms itch to reach out and _touch_ him.

He’s spared from thinking of ways to insert himself into the conversation when Nick spots him. “Oi, Tomlinson!” He calls, and Louis smiles at him, pushes through the last of the throng of people. Harry turns, spots him; Louis’ heart quickens in his chest.

“Hi,” he says as steadily as he can, when he gets to them. Nick grins back at him, but Louis can’t focus, not when Harry’s alive, stood in the middle of the room like he’s always been there; not when Harry’s _tangible_ , real, enough that Louis can feel warmth radiating from him. Not when Harry’s staring straight at him for the first time in six weeks, the slope of his nose and the curve of his lip exactly the way Louis remembers them to be.

Not when Harry is staring at Louis with no recognition whatsoever in his eyes.

The realization hits him like a punch to the gut. Harry is here and Harry is looking at him and Harry is smiling at him but his eyes are empty, devoid of anything except polite curiosity.

“You’re drinking quite slow today,” Nick observes, clinking his glass against Louis’. “Usually by this time of night, you’re already hammered.”

“Haha Grimshaw, piss off,” Louis replies, as sarcastic as he can.

Nick doesn’t take any offense to that; instead, he laughs, before turning to Harry. “Harry, this is Louis,” he says, gesturing to Louis. “Louis Tomlinson. The one I was telling you about.”

“Nice to meet you,” Harry says. He’s still got the fake, perfunctory expression on his face. “I heard you were the one in charge of selling my flat?”

“I was, yeah,” Louis replies. “Gorgeous flat, that.”

One of Harry’s dimples makes a light indent against his cheek. “Thanks,” he says. “Also, thanks for not selling it. Meant I still had a home after I got out of the hospital.”

“You’re living there right now?”

Harry makes a face. “I mean, not currently,” he says. “I’m staying at my mum’s, just while recovering. But, I plan to move back there eventually.” The corner of his mouth ticks up. “It’s my home.”

 _This is my home_ , Louis remembers Harry’s ghost telling him, lifetimes ago.

“Harry here,” Nick says, placing a hand on Louis’ shoulder, “was the one you saw in the hospital with me. Do you remember?”

 _How could I forget_ , Louis thinks, but he doesn’t say. He pastes a smile on his face. “Yeah, yeah. I remember.”

“Oh, you came to see me too!” Harry exclaims. His voice is a little cheeky. A little dry. “Thanks for that, then. Appreciated the company.”

“I mean, there’s nothing to be thankful for,” Louis says, trying to find his footing in this back and forth, despite feeling a little lost. A little out of his depth. “I didn’t even bring you anything, I just went to turn something over to Nick.” He pauses. “I’d thought that he was dying, if I’m being honest with you.”

That makes Harry chuckle. “Maybe, Nicholas, you should tell people what you’re doing at the hospital so they don’t mistakenly assume you’re dying.”

“I won’t, Harold,” Nick says. “I like there to be an air of mystery around me at all times.”

Harry shoots Louis a look, an exasperated _can-you-believe-this-guy_ written all over his face, and it’s the closest sincere expression Louis has seen in this conversation that it makes him ache all over, makes his heart skip a beat and his breath catch in his throat. He opens his mouth to speak, about to say something along the lines of _how are you doing now_ and _please remember me_ , but then someone calls Harry’s name and Harry turns away, his face already lit up in anticipation of who he’s going to see.

“Oh, Sarah!” He says gleefully, and then he’s shooting Louis a smile and then weaving his way through the throng of people.

Louis watches, disappointment in his chest, as he makes his way to her, watches as she gives him a hug, watches as she looks him over, her eyes wide. Watches as he says something to her that makes her throw her head back and laugh.

“That’s Harry for you,” Nick says almost fondly, watching the same scene Louis is. “He’s always been a bit of a social butterfly.”

There had been people that had known Harry before the accident, had seen him in different states of being—happy, sad, drunk, excitable. People who had known him, liked him, loved him, and Louis had been banking on a relationship he’d formed with his fucking _ghost_. Louis hadn’t known at the time what he’d expected when he’d made his way to Harry, but now he understands that Harry isn’t his, was never his; that they’d existed in some barely thought-of place, an exception in the logical laws of the universe.

 _As long as he’s alive_ , Louis tells himself. _As long as he’s alive_.

“Excuse me,” he says to Nick. “I think—I think my friends are looking for me.”

And then he leaves.

. . .

Despite trying not to, Louis gets drunk.

Not _too_ drunk, though. Just enough that everything seems to be a little bit brighter, the edges of his vision spinning. Enough that he has to hold Zayn’s hand so he doesn’t get lost, because as Zayn tells him, Louis has always had the tendency to run off whenever he gets drunk.

Enough that he figures signing up for karaoke is a good idea.

He’d thought it’d be fun, signing up. But now that he’s standing on the karaoke stage, a microphone in one hand and his cup of wine in another, he’s not quite sure that it _is_.

“Um, hi,” Louis says, into the microphone, and half the room turns their attention to him. He takes a drink from his glass of wine, hoping for a little bit more liquid courage. “I’m Louis, and I’m supposed to be singing a song, and so…I’m sorry?”

He’s met with a few laughs at that. “Go, Tommo!” Niall shouts, from somewhere on the floor, loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Thank you, Niall.”

Somehow, in between this moment and the next, his eyes find Harry in the crowd—he’s staring up at Louis with a curious expression in his face, a curl neatly framing his forehead. His eyes are bright, disorienting; and there’s something in the way he’s staring that makes Louis’ throat close up.

It’s a familiar expression. A _far_ too familiar expression.

And so Louis’ drunk brain makes a decision—he waves a hand at the man manning the karaoke backing tracks, and sits behind the keyboard left on the stage, already set up for the live band later. He presses down on a note, and it rings out in the room.

“So, I know karaoke is usually a bunch of drunk people singing along to backing tracks,” Louis begins. “But a friend of mine wrote this song and I just. I just wanted to play it for you guys.”

He looks at Zayn—Zayn, who’s standing towards the back of the crowd, his brown eyes comforting. The corner of Zayn’s mouth turns up, and he gives Louis a little smile, and that’s all he needs to look down at the keyboard, settling his fingers on the keys.

He lets his hands run away from him—fingers playing notes learned weeks ago, chords shifting seamlessly into other chords. It’s muscle memory, almost, the way Louis’ fingers can easily remember each note, each chord.

Things come to him in flashes-- the sound of piano music, wafting through Harry’s flat; laughter and bickering and terrible, made-up lyrics. Harry’s voice when he’d belted out Britney Spears; the low, rough, and almost emotional way he’d sung when he and Louis had written this song, like it’d been coming from deep within.

Which is why Louis can’t help but search for Harry in the crowd, can’t help but catch his eye. Can’t help but hold his gaze as he sings: _same lips red, same eyes blue; same white sheet, couple more tattoos._

It’s instant, the way Harry’s expression changes—it’s not a song he should recognize, but he seems to. His eyes widen a little and his mouth parts a little and his green eyes blaze, intent and intense, and Louis feels hot all over, his face flushing.

He ignores it though, tries his best not to let his voice waver as he sings, makes sure his fingers don’t press on the wrong keys. Tries to pour everything he can into the song, every emotion he’d felt in their four months together. He hopes, that in some distant part of Harry, he understands.

The last few notes trickle off, and there’s a second of silence until the crowd is applauding him politely. “Thank you very much,” Louis says. His eyes are still glued on Harry, who doesn’t look like he’s moved a muscle—he doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. “Have a good night.”

And he shoots Harry a semblance of a smile, shrugs, and escapes from the stage.

. . .

It only takes Harry five minutes to find him outside.

“Louis?” Harry says. When Louis turns around, he’s standing about ten metres away, broad shouldered and pigeon-toed. “It’s Louis, right?”

Louis’ throat feels dry. “Yeah.”

The evening is a little chilly, bursts of wind every now and then. Despite it all, the way Harry’s looking at him makes him feel warm all over, makes him sober up quickly, the alcohol evaporating in his veins.

“I liked your song,” Harry says, after a beat. “It was…nice.”

“It’s not my song,” Louis replies. “A friend of mine wrote it. I just sang it.”

“Well, it’s a good song anyway.”

“Thanks.”

It would’ve been gentler, Louis thinks distantly, to eat his heart out rather than to be given a taste of just what being in love with Harry felt like. Because now he’s left wonderful memories and a heart hastily stitched together, left with the boy he loved but doesn’t even remember him.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Harry begins, “but…”

“Yeah?”

“I just. Feel like I recognize you.” His brow furrows. “From…from somewhere.”

“Do you?” Louis replies. There are flames in his belly, licking at his veins. “Maybe in your dreams or summat.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, sounding unconvinced. “Maybe.” He clears his throat, his eyes darting at different points on Louis’ face. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”

“No, unless you’re counting that visit to the hospital.”

Harry makes a face. “Probably not, I wasn’t conscious for that.”

The silence that falls over them is loud, almost deafening. Louis takes a deep breath, lets it out; watches as his breath turns to mist, curling upwards into the atmosphere.

“So,” Harry starts again. “The flat. You weren’t able to sell it?”

Louis gives him a look. “I mean, it’s still yours isn’t it?”

“Yes, but why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why weren’t you able to sell it?”

“What, are you complaining?” Louis asks, a little confused.

“ _No_ , just…asking, is all.” Harry takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising with the motion. “Like you said, it’s a gorgeous flat, and real estate in London is insane. At that price, I’d have thought that someone would have swooped it up the instant it was put on the market.”

“Well, to be honest, many tried,” Louis replies. He thinks of all the showings he’d conducted in the past four months, remembers the facts about the flat that he can now parrot without even thinking about it. Remembers Harry, scaring them away—the way he’d laugh once a client was out and running through the door. “A lot of people were definitely interested.”

“But..?”

“I don’t know if Nick told you,” Louis says, “but the flat’s got a bit of a reputation for being haunted.”

It’s clearly not what Harry expected, because lets out a loud laugh. “You’re shitting me.”

“I’m genuinely not,” Louis replies, rolling his eyes good naturedly. “Best watch out for that ghost, Harry. I heard it likes to listen to Britney Spears on repeat.”

“Oh, but if it’s a _Britney_ ghost, I don’t mind,” Harry says, grinning. “I love Britney Spears.”

“I know.” Louis doesn’t realize what he’s just said until Harry’s expression drops, a frown replacing his budding smile. He opens his mouth, presumably to ask just _how_ Louis would know that, but Louis speaks up before he can.

“I think you should get back to Nick,” he says. “He’s probably looking for you.”

There’s a moment where it looks like Harry might argue, narrowing his eyes at Louis, but he evidently thinks the better of it. “Alright, yeah,” he says. He shrugs. “Took him quite the effort to convince the doctors to let me come out tonight, you know?”

“I figured,” Louis says, a little wryly. “You recovered fast, for a coma patient.”

Harry winks at him. “Don’t tell anyone, but the doctors said I was a medical miracle.”

“I’m inclined to believe them.” Louis chuckles, holding out a hand. “Well,” he says, “it was nice meeting you, Harry. Properly.”

“You too, Louis.” Harry takes Louis’ hand with ease, his large hand wrapping around Louis’ smaller one. His hand is dry and a little warm against Louis’ skin, more concrete than Louis’ ever felt it, and Louis bites his lip, takes a moment to relish in the sensation of callouses on Harry’s fingertips, a palm that’s just on the side of rough.

Louis is grateful that just for a moment, he gets this—he gets to feel Harry’s hands against his skin; gets to feel him solid and real. Gets to feel the weight of his hand, the warmth of his palm; all evidence to the fact that Harry is _real_ and _alive_ , and that he’s standing in front of Louis with air in his lungs and a heart that’s beating.

Except—

Except Harry inhales sharply, makes a noise that sounds a little like a gasp;

Except Harry’s face changes, emotions flashing through his eyes so quick that Louis can’t read them;

Except Harry’s grip on Louis’ hand is suddenly tight, like a vice.

“ _Louis_.”

And it’s nothing he hasn’t said tonight, just Louis’ name, but somehow, it’s different. In that one word, Louis hears everything in it—the shock and recognition giving way to joy, elation, hears the hours spent together in a London flat, bickering and ribbing each other good-naturedly. Hears the _hello_ and the _goodbye_ , and most importantly, hears the cadence of _oh God, it’s you_.

 _It’s you_.

And it’s all Louis can do not to stumble as Harry pulls him closer, all he can do not to fall face first onto the ground. All he can do as Harry holds him flush against him, so close that Louis can only see his eyes and the tears forming in them.

Harry lets go of Louis’ hand and settles it on the side of Louis’ face. His thumb strokes at the high point of Louis’ cheekbones, gentle and delicate.

Louis’ pulse is racing in his ears. “Harry?” He asks, because he _has_ to know, he has to be sure, and—

And Harry kisses him.

His lips are soft against Louis’ and his other hand is settling on Louis’ lower back, pulling him closer, and _Harry is kissing him_ and it’s.

It’s sunlight streaming through the gorgeous bay windows, and it’s the blue sky on a sunny day. It’s the pull of gravity against the waves, inevitable. It’s flowers on window sills on coffee tables on bookshelves, it’s table magazines being thrown in the air. It’s piano notes wafting, soft and sweet, it’s stupid lyrics and dumb rhymes and laughter, always laughter. It’s the opening theme of _Queer Eye_ and Britney Spears’ voice bouncing through the walls and it’s _Harry_ , all Harry—Harry and all his quirks, Harry and all his idiosyncrasies, Harry and his unmistakable humanity.

When Harry pulls away, Louis keeps his eyes closed. Presses his forehead against Harry’s and says, a teasing lilt in his voice, “so you’ll never forget me, huh?”

There’s a laugh in Harry’s voice, watery and bright. “I didn’t,” he says, earnest as anything. “I swear, Louis.”

“Yeah? And what was all that?” Louis asks, opening his eyes. He leans back and traces every contour of Harry’s face; refamiliarizes himself with the slope of his nose and the angle of his jaw, reacquaints himself with his baby curls and the mole on his chin. “Acting practice? Starring in a feature film anytime soon, Harold?”

Harry laughs. “ _Ghost_ , part two,” he says sagely. “Starring Harry Edward Styles.”

“Don’t try and make me laugh,” Louis scolds. He’s grinning too hard for it to hold any water, though, staring at this boy—this beautiful, wonderful boy—with a hand Louis can finally hold, with a heartbeat Louis can _finally_ hear.

“You’re always laughing at me though,” Harry argues, grinning just as wide as Louis does. He hasn’t let go of Louis. “It’s just cause I’m funny.”

“Annoying, more like.”

“We’ve established that so many times,” Harry agrees. “I’m annoying and the bane of your existence.” His eyes grow a touch serious. “Hey. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving me.” A tear rolls down Harry’s cheek, drips off his jaw. “You—you saved me, Lou. I was dying and you brought me back to life.”

Louis shrugs. “I didn’t do anything,” he says, a little flustered. “I just. Held your hand and like spoke to you a bit.”

“But still,” Harry insists. “Without you, I wouldn’t be here right now.” He pauses, a funny little look crossing his face. “I love you.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it, but this time, it leaves Louis breathless. This time, Harry says it and he’s not fading; this time he’s here and present and has a whole fucking lifetime ahead of him. This time he says it and they’re not chasing the clock; they’ve got however long to say it however many times they want.

It might not be forever, Louis knows this much. But he knows it’s going to be a while.

“I love you too,” Louis says. Watches the way Harry’s face lights up, thinks _I could get used to this._ “But I still can’t believe you forgot me.”

And the sound of Harry’s laugh lights up the night, lights up all the empty crevices in Louis’ heart. Fills in the parts of Louis that he’d lost when he’d thought Harry had faded, and Louis can’t help but press his hand against Harry’s chest, feel his heartbeat strong and alive, can’t help but lean onto his toes and kiss Harry again.

And again and again and again, because now that he can, he doesn’t intend to stop.

. . .

**EPILOGUE**

“I can’t believe you’ve actually _live_ here now,” Nick complains, the instant Louis opens the front door. He’s got two bottles of wine in his hands and a pouty expression on his face. “ _I_ wanted to live here.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis gloats, stepping aside to let him in, “sucks for you.”

The expression Nick gives him is funny—a mix between exasperated and fond, on the verge of rolling his eyes. He hands the two bottles of wine to Louis before pulling him into a quick hug. “I’m happy for you,” he says.

Louis knows that Nick’s genuinely happy for them—he’d been incredibly happy when he and Harry started dating, and incredibly elated when Harry invited him to his small _Louis-is-moving-in!_ get together. A little surprised too, because to him it’s only been a little over five months of their relationship, but all in all, very happy.

So Louis smiles, hugs Nick back, while trying not to drop the two bottles of wine in his hand. “Thanks,” he says sincerely, and Nick smacks a dry kiss on the side of his forehead before pulling away, wandering into the flat.

“Harold,” he says imperiously when he enters the living room, Louis trailing behind him. “Answer me this. If Louis is moving in here then where the _fuck_ am I going to stay after a night out?”

Harry doesn’t look up from where he’s arranging the hors d’oeuvres with Niall. “I mean you can still stay here,” he says. “The couch is always available to you.”

Nick snorts. “And have to listen to you and Louis get it on?” He asks. “Uh, no thanks.”

“Can I stay on the couch then?” Niall asks, nudging Harry. “I can sleep anywhere. And like, I don’t mind listening to you and Louis get it on. It’s free porn.”

“Everything free is always a lot better,” Harry agrees sagely, and Niall gives him a high five.

Sometimes Louis thinks life would’ve been easier if Harry and Niall just never met. They get along _far_ too well, most especially when it’s at Louis’ expense. “Fuck off,” he tells them both, setting the bottle of wine on the small sliver of space on the coffee table. “I refuse to be in a porno.”

“Oh, but baby,” Harry replies, without missing a beat, “you’re my favourite porn star.”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “I’m going to throw this bottle of wine at you,” he threatens.

Harry looks up at him and mimics his movement. “Do it. I dare you.”

There’s a beat where he and Harry just stare at each other, matching challenging expressions on their face. Harry’s the first one who drops it, though, breaking into a wide grin as he leaves the hors d’oeuvres alone and goes over to wrap Louis in a hug. “I missed you,” Harry says, nuzzling his face into Louis’ hair. “You were gone for _so long_.”

Honestly, he’s an idiot. “Harry, I was gone for five seconds. To let Nick in.”

“Five seconds too long,” Harry moans dramatically. “I don’t like it when you’re not here.”

Louis rolls his eyes, feeling the beginning of a smile tug at his lips. “Bet you say that to all your girls,” he quips. He keeps himself in the circle of Harry’s arms, wraps his arms around Harry’s neck and leans on his toes to press a quick peck on Harry’s lips.

Harry, however, tightens his grip on Louis, transforms the kiss into something deeper, something more intense. He kisses Louis like he never wants to stop, Harry does, and Louis can’t help a shiver go through his body, his toes curling into his shoes.

It’s been about five months since Louis could do this. Louis doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it.

“Boo,” Louis hears Zayn say, probably emerging from the kitchen. “Get a room.”

“Noooo,” Niall replies. “I want a free porno!”

“A porno?” Liam sounds scandalized. “I thought all they did was cuddle.”

Louis pulls away from Harry, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Fuck you guys,” he says to the lads, who just laugh at him, matching shit-eating expressions on their face. He turns to Harry, cocks an eyebrow at him. “And fuck you the most.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry says, winking. “We can do that later. We still have to christen the flat.” He pauses. “Well, everywhere else except the couch, at least.”

At those words, Nick, who’d plopped himself down on the couch, scrambles up from the seat. “Disgusting,” he says, shuddering, and Louis can’t help but laugh at the expression on his face. “Absolutely disgusting. I never should’ve introduced you guys at all.”

“Trust me,” Niall interjects, “if you hadn’t introduced these two, they would’ve met anyway.”

“Really?” Nick asks. “How?”

“What do you mean how?”

“How would they have met?” Nick sits himself back on the couch, looking oddly interested. “Tell me, Harold, if it wasn’t for me, how would you and Louis even have connected?”

Louis bites his lip. Turns to face Harry, finds him already staring back, with a grin so wide it threatens to break his face in two. Harry raises an eyebrow, and Louis nods, feeling his own smile grow.

“Well,” Harry begins, his eyes sparkling with excitement, with mirth, with _life_. “It would’ve started with a bet.”

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from 'the night we met' by lord huron
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://missandrogyny.tumblr.com)!


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